Team Thank You Quotes

Darcangelo winced, gritted his teeth "Want to tell me why ... you're sitting here cuddling me, Hunter?" "Rossiter says I have to keep you warm. He thinks you're in shock or some shit." Despite his words and the tone of his voice, there was really worry on Hunter's face. "Great. Thanks." Darcangelo's head fell back to rest against Hunter's vest, the big guy's strength clearly spent. A muscle clenched in Hunter's jaw. "Hey, don't mention it--ever.

Here’s to the 10 characters, 5 couples, 3 teams, 2 sets of siblings, and 1 amazing friend group that changed my life. This one is dedicated to you, the readers. Thank you for hanging out in Chicago with me.

RON: Malfoy, you may be all chummy chummy with Harry, and you may have produced a relatively nice child, but you've said some very unfair things to and about my wife... HERMIONE: And your wife doesn't need you fighting her battles for her. RON: Fine. But if you say one thing about her or me... DRACO: You'll do what, Weasley? HERMIONE: He'll hug you. Because we're all on the same team, aren't we, Ron? RON: Fine. I, um, I think you've got really nice hair. Draco. HERMIONE: Thank you, husband.

Thank you, honey,” she kept whispering. “For what?” “A good life and a beautiful family.” “You had a hand in that,” he reminded her. “I know. We’re a team. Thank you for giving me that too.

As you enter this place of work please choose to make today a great day. Your colleagues, customers, team members, and you yourself will be thankful. Find ways to play. We can be serious about our work without being serious about ourselves. Stay focused in order to be present when your customers and team mebers most need you. And should you feel your enegery lapsing, try this surefire remedy: Find someone who needs a helping hand, a word of support, or a good ear - and make their day.

Thank you. You saved me out there.” “We're a team. I'm here to help you out.” “I like the way that sounds.

Wow, thank you so much for the compliment!" Patty answered brightly, to end things. At the time, she believed that it was because she was so selflessly team-spirited that direct personal compliments made her so uncomfortable. The autobiographer now thinks that compliments were like a beverage she was unconsciously smart enough to deny herself even one drop of, because her thirst for them was infinite.

If you're anything like me, You bite your nails, And laugh when you're nervous. You promise people the world, because that's what they want from you. You like giving them what they want... But darling, you need to stop, If you're anything like me, You knock on wood every time you make plans. You cross your fingers, hold your breath, Wish on lucky numbers and eyelashes Your superstitions were the lone survivors of the shipwreck. Rest In Peace, to your naive bravado... If life gets too good now, Darling, it scares you. If you're anything like me, You never wanted to lock your door, Your secret garden gate or your diary drawer Didn't want to face the you you don't know anymore For fear she was much better before... But Darling, now you have to. If you're anything like me, There's a justice system in your head For names you'll never speak again, And you make your ruthless rulings. Each new enemy turns to steel They become the bars that confine you, In your own little golden prison cell... But Darling, there is where you meet yourself. If you're anything like me You've grown to hate your pride To love your thighs And no amount of friends at 25 Will fill the empty seats At the lunch tables of your past The teams that picked you last... But Darling, you keep trying. If you're anything like me, You couldn't recognize the face of your love Until they stripped you of your shiny paint Threw your victory flag away And you saw the ones who wanted you anyway... Darling, later on you will thank your stars for that frightful day. If you're anything like me, I'm sorry. But Darling, it's going to be okay.

We don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that's what I want in life. What I'm grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I'm scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow after Commencement and leave this place. “It's not quite love and it's not quite community; it's just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it's four A.M. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can't remember. That time we did, we went , we saw, we laughed, we felt. The hats.

But as I stood across from Archer, I couldn't forget that I was completely, stupidly in love with the one person I could never have. The laughter died on my lips, and I dashed at my eyes with the back of my hand. "I need to get back," I said. "Right," he replied. He was still holding his sword in his right hand, and he twirled the hilt, the point sratching the wooden floor. "So this is it. We're done." "Yeah," I said, my voice cracking. I cleared my throat. "And I have to say, the world's first and last Eye-demon reconnaissance mission went pretty well." It was a struggle to meet his eyes, but I managed it. "Thank you." He shrugged, his dark gaze full of something I couldn't quite read. "We were a good team." "We were." In more ways than one, I thought. Which is why this sucked so bad. I stepped back. "Anyway, I should go. See ya,Cross." Then I laughed, only it sounded suspiciously like another sob. "Except I won't, will I So I guess I should say goodbye." I felt like I was about to shatter into a million tiny shards, like the mirrors I'd broken with Dad. "okay, well, best of luck with the whole Eye thing, then. Try not to kill anyone I know." I turned away, but he reached out and caught my wrist. I could feel my pulse hammering under his fingers. "Mercer, that day in the cellar..." He searched my face, and I could sense him struggling for what he wanted to say. Then finally, "I didn't kiss you back because I had to. I kissed you because I wanted to." His eyes dropped to my lips,and it was like the whole world had shrunk to just me and him and the shaft of light between us. "I still want to," he said hoarsely. He tugged my wrist and pulled me into his arms. My brain registered the sound of his sword clattering to he ground as his other hand came up to grab the back of my neck, but once his lips were on mine, everything else faded away. I clutched at his shoulders, raising up on my tiptoes, and kissed him with everything I had in me. As the kiss deepened, we held each other tighter, so I didn't know if the pounding heartbeat I felt was mine or his. How stupid,I thought dreamily, to have ever thought I could give this up. Not just the kissing, although, as Archer's hands cupped my face, I had to admit that part was pretty awesome. But all of it: joking with him and working beside him. Being with a guy who was my friend and could still make me feel like this.

You big dumb idiot,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re always worried about what you can give to me, or how you can help me… but it doesn’t work like that: We’re a team, and sometimes you need help just as much as I do. So keep your Patrian-indoctrinated testosterone out of our relationship, please and thank you.

Now you’re thinking. I’ll drive.” “No. I’d appreciate the other set of eyes, and the scary brain, but if I’m hung up I need you here to start briefing the team.” Those fabulous eyes stared right through her. “You want me to brief a room of cops? That’s appalling, Eve, on so many levels.” “Nobody knows how to run a meeting as well as you. I’ll try to be back, but I have to follow this out.” “I’m definitely going to want the costumes. I may have them designed for you.” “One of us is worth a dozen of them,” she said, repeating his words. “You’re one of us.” “I realize you see that as a compliment, but ...” He trailed off, sighed. “Thank you.

Aaron opened his mouth, closed it again, and fixed Nicky with an annoyed look. "You're explaining this to Andrew when he gets back." "Oh, hell no," Nicky said, and jerked a thumb at Neil. "I'mma leave that one to him. Thanks for taking one for the team, Neil. You're a real friend." Nicky grinned over at Neil, but his amusement didn't last. He seemed confused by whatever he saw on Neil's face and backpedaled with, "Don't worry, we'll send Renee along with you for backup. Last I checked Andrew only wins half their fights, so you might actually survive. Uh. Neil?" He should just let it go, or at least leave it to think about later, but Neil couldn't resist. "Are we?" he asked, because hadn't Betsy said it just a few days ago? He hadn't understood it then and hadn't even tried, too angry and upset over everything else that was happening. Tonight it almost meant something, though what, Neil didn't know. Realizing Nicky couldn't follow his twisting train of thought, Neil forced himself to say, "Friends?" It was like that one word punched all the joy out of Nicky, but the look that crossed Nicky's face next was too fast for Neil to decipher. Nicky's smile was back a second later, but it didn't reach his eyes. Neil might have apologized, except Nicky reached out and scrubbed a gloved hand through Neil's hair. "You are going to be the absolute death of me," Nicky said. "Yeah, kid. We're friends. You're stuck with us, like it or not.

Neil stared back at him, suddenly lost. He was fluent in two languages, nearly there in a third, and could string together some useful survival phrases in a half-dozen more. But with the whole truth bared between them Neil didn't have the right words to say. "You should have thrown my file away," Neil said at last. "You should have walked away when I threw your contract back in your face. But you took a chance on me and you brought me here. You saved my life. Three times," Neil said, "you've saved my life. I can't just say 'thank you' for that." "You don't have to," Wymack said. "I brought you here, but you saved yourself. You're the one who decided to stay. You're the one who stopped being afraid long enough to realize you could get a grip here and a foothold there. You found your own way." "If anything," Wymack continued when Neil tried to protest, "I should be thanking you. You told us last night you intended to end the year dead or in federal custody. You could have shut everyone and everything out and worried about yourself this year. Instead you agreed to help Dan fix this team. You're saving the two I thought we couldn't reach, and you're a living example for Kevin to follow. He never used to watch you," Wymack said, "but he's had eyes on you since December trying to figure out how you stand your ground.

Thank you,” she repeated, wishing he didn’t feel so tense in her arms. “I mean it, Keefe. I don’t know if I’d be able to get through this without you.” “Yes you could,” he argued, finally relaxing as he leaned into the hug to whisper, “You’re Lady Foster. The Dire Wolf of Team Fancypants. And I gotta say, you look awfully cute in a crown.

Thank you, Dad. For… standing up for me. Loving me.” “Never thank me for that. You’re my son. I will always love you.

What assignment?” Lucky asked. “If it’s training an all-woman SEAL team, then, yes, thank you very much, I’m your man.

What’s the best way to manage rock stars, the people whom you can count on to deliver great results year after year? You need to recognize them to keep them happy. For too many bosses, “recognition” means “promotion.” But in most cases, this is a big mistake. Promotion often puts these people in roles they are not as well-suited for or don’t want. The key is to recognize their contribution in other ways. It may be a bonus or a raise. Or, if they like public speaking, get them to present at your all-hands meetings or other big events. If they like teaching, get them to help new people learn their roles faster. Or if they are shy, make sure that you and others on the team thank them privately for the work they do.

you'd never never never again work for that manipulative, Machiavellian psychopath. And he'd get you back on the team, often with a gesture as simple and inexpensive as a baseball cap or a T-shirt. The timing was what did it, that he knew. He knew just when to apply that well-timed pat on the back, the strangled and difficult-for-him 'Thank you for your good work' appreciation of your labors.

Beckendorf walked up with his helmet under his arm. “She likes you, man.” “Sure,” I muttered. “She likes me for target practice.” “Nah, they always do that. A girl starts trying to kill you, you know she’s into you.” “Makes a lot of sense.” Beckendorf shrugged. “I know about these things. You ought to ask her to the fireworks.” I couldn’t tell if he was serious. Beckendorf was lead counselor for Hephaestus. He was this huge dude with a permanent scowl, muscles like a pro ballplayer, and hands calloused from working in the forges. He’d just turned eighteen and was on his way to NYU in the fall. Since he was older, I usually listened to him about stuff, but the idea of asking Annabeth to the Fourth of July fireworks down at the beach—like, the biggest dating event of the summer—made my stomach do somersaults. Then Silena Beauregard, the head counselor for Aphrodite, passed by. Beckendorf had had a not-so-secret crush on her for three years. She had long black hair and big brown eyes, and when she walked, the guys tended to watch. She said, “Good luck, Charlie.” (Nobody ever calls Beckendorf by his first name.) She flashed him a brilliant smile and went to join Annabeth on the red team. “Uh . . .” Beckendorf swallowed like he’d forgotten how to breathe. I patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks for the advice, dude. Glad you’re so wise about girls and all. Come on. Let’s get to the woods.

Vanny, were you gonna want me to help you with your draft list again this year?” I groaned. “I forgot. My brother just messaged me about it. I can’t let him win again this year, Zac. I can’t put up with his crap.” He raised his hand in a dismissive gesture. “I got you. Don’t worry about it.” “Thank—what?” Aiden had his glass halfway to his mouth and was frowning. “You play fantasy football?” he asked, referring to the online role-playing game that millions of people participated in. Participants got to build imaginary teams during a mock draft, made up of players throughout the league. I’d been wrangled into playing against my brother and some of our mutual friends about three years ago and had joined in ever since. Back then, I had no idea what the hell a cornerback was, much less a bye week, but I’d learned a lot since then.

Thank you so much for this honor. Really … I’ve been so lucky … to have been born where I could get an education, where my dreams were not stifled, and where I was lucky enough to become a part of some amazing teams.

Thank me once you are safe. Now that you’ve been revived and Xenocrates knows where you are, you can bet he’s notified the local scythes. I’m certain a team has been dispatched to retrieve you, which means we need to get you out of here now.

He could tell when the bullying, the relentless sarcasm, the constant, all-encompassing vigilance had become too exhausting. When one of his people was fed up with staying awake at night anticipating his likes and dislikes, was sick of charting his mood swings, was tired of feeling demeaned and beaten down after being asked, for instance, to clean out the grease trap, was ready to burst into tears and quit, then suddenly Bigfoot would appear with court side seats for a play-off game, a restaurant warm-up jacket (given out only to Most Honored Veterans), or a present for the wife or girlfriend — something thoughtful like a Movado watch. He always waited until the last possible second, when you were ready to shave your head, climb a tower and start gunning down strangers, when you were ready to strip off your clothes and run barking into the street, to scream to the world that you'd never never never again work for that manipulative, Machiavellian psychopath. And he'd get you back on the team, often with a gesture as simple and inexpensive as a baseball cap or a T-shirt. The timing was what did it, that he knew. He knew just when to apply that well-timed pat on the back, the strangled and difficult-for-him 'Thank you for your good work' appreciation of your labors.

Maybe fearing that Vaughan won’t understand why Debbie’s correct, Elliot chimes in: Debbie is 100% right here. Vaughan, you need to appreciate that “respecting the rule of law” only goes so far to explain or justify government behavior. To many people who follow human rights issues and international law, the foundation of international law is the rejection of the so-called Nuremberg defense—the claim by Nazi’s that they “were just following orders” and respecting the laws and policies of the Nazi state. Vaughan simply thanks Elliot for “the articulate background.” I can’t tell if he’s being brazen or genuine. There is simply no putting this man off his putt. Either way, I think the point at which you have to explain Nuremberg to the head of the team leading your China entry is probably a red flag.

Nice job, nineteen.” With my hands gripped to the edge of my box, I look down to find Kennedy, wearing our team polo and those shoes I bought and married her in. “Nice shoes.” “Thanks for that, by the way,” she says. “That’s it? You’re not going to tell me what a good boy I am for not getting in a fist fight with your brother?” “You want me to call you a good boy?”  “Mmm, yes, please. Preferably while we’re naked and you’re on top of me, but now would do too.” That smile I’m quickly becoming addicted to blooms. “I’ll keep that in mind.

The gun was the primary tool of the trade for the majority of my adult life to that point. It was the difference between life and death—for me, sure, but more importantly for my team—and to not be as good as I could possibly be with it felt like it would have been a betrayal.

Eena!” Recognizing Ian’s voice, Eena turned to find him approaching her from behind. He was entirely clad in body armor and gauntlets, cradling an open-faced helmet in one arm. Painted on his chest plate was a flaming, gold sword. From his side hung a leather sheath, a golden hilt peeking from the top. “I’m glad you’re back. You are going to stay and watch us play, aren’t you?” He looked hopeful she’d say yes. Eena smiled brightly. “I didn’t know you were talented enough to be on a dueling team. Nice sword,” she teased. Ian blushed a degree. “Thanks. They call us the Savage Warriors!” He rasped their team name in a semi-ferocious voice. “Jerin’s team captain.” She laughed at the showy designation. “And who’s your challenger today?” “The Dragon Slayers - Derian’s team.” Eena’s face fell. “Derian is playing?” She groaned internally, knowing she should’ve guessed as much. This was starting to look like another setup.

GE’s lab is like a mini United Nations. Every engineering team looks like one of those multiethnic Benetton ads. But this was not affirmative action at work; it was a brutal meritocracy. When you are competing in the global technology Olympics every day, you have to recruit the best talent from anywhere you can find it.

Over the top? You bet. Not only did we want our people to come in for dinner; we wanted them to have a better experience than anyone else in the room. It was a way to say thank you for all that the team gave us—their creativity, good humor, and hard work. But it was also to show them the same graciousness they delivered every day.

The Healing spells on his chest were certainly earning their keep tonight. Sullivan got to his feet. The lack of noise from the courtyard indicated that his team had gotten all the mechanical men. “Thanks.” Toru just grunted a noncommittal response as he lifted the feed tray to check the condition of his borrowed machine gun. They didn’t see the final robot inside until it turned on its eye and illuminated the Iron Guard in blue light. Sullivan’s Spike reversed gravity, and the gigantic machine fell upward to hit the steel beams in the ceiling. Sullivan cut his Power and the robot dropped. It crashed hard into the floor where it lay twitching and kicking. The two of them riddled the mechanical man with bullets until the light died and it lay still in a spreading puddle of oil. “Normally, this would be the part where you thank me for returning the favor and saving your life.” “Yes. Normally… If we were court ladies instead of warriors,” Toru answered. “Shall we continue onward or do you wish to stop and discuss your feelings over tea?” Sullivan looked forward to the day that the two of them would be able to finish their fight. “Let’s go.

Teller tells his teams: “I don’t care how much progress you make this month; my job is to cause your rate of improvement to increase—how do we make the same mistake in half the time for half the money?” In sum, said Teller, what we are experiencing today, with shorter and shorter innovation cycles, and less and less time to learn to adapt, “is the difference between a constant state of destabilization versus occasional destabilization.

The seniors look my way before they leave. One girl, not the cheerleader, nods her head, and says, "Way to go. I hope you're OK." With hours left in the school year, I have suddenly become popular. Thanks to the big mouths on the lacrosse team, everybody knew what happened before sundown. Mom took me to the hospital to stitch up the cut on my hand. When we got home, there was a message on the machine from Rachel. She wants me to call her.

She’d just poured herself another cup of coffee, when Jack walked in. He smiled when he saw her, and her heart did a little flip. “Good morning, beautiful. How did you sleep?” She felt heat in her cheeks. “I slept well, thank you. Thanks for staying with me. Did you get any sleep in that chair?” “Oh, yeah.” He reached for a coffee cup. “I can sleep pretty much anywhere—a benefit of having served with the Rangers. If I get five hours a night, I’m good.

As you enter this place of work please choose to make today a great day. Your colleagues, customers, team members, and you yourself will be thankful. Find ways to play. We can be serious about our work without being serious about ourselves. Stay focused in order to be there when your customers and team members most need you. And should you feel your energy lapsing, try this surefire remedy: Find someone who needs a helping hand, a word of support, or a good ear—and make their day.

OUR WORKPLACE As you enter this place of work please choose to make today a great day. Your colleagues, customers, team members, and you yourself will be thankful. Find ways to play. We can be serious about our work without being serious about ourselves. Stay focused in order to be there when your customers and team members most need you. And should you feel your energy lapsing, try this surefire remedy: Find someone who needs a helping hand, a word of support, or a good ear—and make their day.

Golf is the great conductor of life's symphony. Not in my lifetime have I seen anything with more ability to change the course of futures. It has the ability to build lasting relationships in a few short hours, promote executives, fund projects, build teams, break down barriers, and create an environment of deal-making, stress relief, and wellness. It's the one place where we willingly shut off our phones, turn away from distraction and become one with nature and ourselves. -Thank you for being a part of our symphony, Network & Golf

Life of a software engineer sucks big time during project release. Every single team member contribution is very important. At times, we have to skip breakfast, lunch and even dinner, just to make sure the given ‘TASK’ is completed. Worst thing, that’s the time we get to hear wonderful F* words. It can be on conference calls or on emails, still we have to focus and deliver the end product to a client, without any compromise on quality. Actually, every techie should be saluted. We are the reason for the evolution of Information Technology. We innovate. We love artificial intelligence. We create bots and much more. We take you closer to books. Touch and feel it without the need of carrying a paperback. We created eBook and eBook reader app: it’s basically a code of a software engineer that process the file, keeps up-to-date of your reading history, and gives you a smoother reading experience. We are amazing people. We are more than a saint of those days. Next time, when you meet a software engineer, thank him/her for whatever code he/she developed, tested, designed or whatever he/she did!

Logan put his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her away. “Better?” There was some emotion in his eyes, but it disappeared before she could decipher it. “I’m okay, but I’ll be better when all this is over. Thank you.” “For what?” “For coming here when I asked. It was probably an inconvenience to drop everything at a moment’s notice.” Again, something flittered in his eyes, and he glanced away. When his gaze returned to her, whatever she’d seen was gone. “Know this, Dani. Wherever you are and whenever you need me, I will always come to you.

Callie scrambled from under the covers, dashed around the bed, and flung herself into Luce's arms. "They kept telling me you were going to be okay, but in that lying, we're-also-completely-terrified-we're-just-not-going-to-explain-a-word-to-you kind of way. Do you even realize how thoroughly spooky that was? It was like you physically dropped off the face of the Earth-" Luce hugged her back tightly. As far as Callie knew, Luce had been gone only since the night before. "Okay, you two," Molly growled, pulling Luce away from Callie, "you can OMG your faces off later. I didn't lie in your bed in that cheap polyester wig all night enacting Luce-with-stomach-flue so you guys could blow our cover now." She rolled her eyes. "Amateurs." "Hold on. You did what?" Luce asked. "After you...disappeared," Callie said breathlessly, "we knew we could never explain it to your parents. I mean, I could barely fathom it after seeing it with my own eyes. When Gabbe fixed up the backyard, I told your parents you felt sick and had gone to bed, and Molly pretended to be you and-" "Lucky I found this in your closet." Molly twirled a short wavy black wig around one finger. "Halloween remnant?" "Wonder Woman." Luce winced, regretting her middle school Halloween costume, and not for the first time. "Well, it worked." It was strange to see Molly-who'd once sided with Lucifer-helping her. But even Molly, like Cam and Roland, didn't want to fall again. So here they were, a team, strange bedfellows. "You covered for me? I don't know what to say. Thank you." "Whatever." Molly jerked her head at Callie, anything to deflect Luce's gratitude. "She was the real silver-tongued devil. Thank her." She stuck one leg out the open window and turned to call back, "Think you guys can handle it from here? I have a Waffle House summit meeting to attend.

Rule #1: Do the right thing. Have a plan, work the plan. Measure your results. Be accountable—see it; own it; solve it; do it. Rule #2. Do the best you can. Turn problems into opportunities. Add value by becoming part of the solution. Act with a sense of urgency . . . Do it now! Ask the question: “What else can I do?” Ask for coaching: “What can I do better?” Reject average and “good enough.” Learn, correct, improve, and grow. Rule #3: Show others that you care. Show respect. Say: “Please. Thank you. You’re welcome. I’m sorry.” Show and express appreciation. Have each other’s back (“I got you!”). Engage as a team.

If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy. So, live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home. ~ Chief Tecumseh Blurb A woman who betrayed her county.

She rented the place from some whacko, fanatic, leftist, commie, pinko so-called Columbia professor named Sidney Bowman.” “You’re so tolerant, Rolly.” “Yeah, well, I lose touch when I keep missing those ACLU meetings. Anyway, this pinko won’t talk. He says she just rented from him and paid in cash. We all know he’s lying. The feds grilled him, but he got a team of faggot, liberal lawyers down here to spring him. Called us a bunch of Nazi pigs and stuff.” “That’s not a compliment, Rolly. In case you don’t know.” “Thanks for clueing me in. I got Krinsky tailing him right now, but he’s got nothing. I mean, this Bowman’s not a retard. He’s got to know we’re watching.

I could not resist the temptation to ask: Tell me something, Damiana: what do you recall? I wasn't recalling anything, she said, but your question makes me remember. I felt a weight in my chest. I've never fallen in love, I told her. She replied without hesitation: I have. And she concluded, not interrupting her work: I cried over you for twenty-two years. My heart skipped a beat. Looking for a dignified way out, I said: We would have made a good team. Well, it's wrong of you to say so now, she said, because you're no good to me anymore even as a consolation. As she was leaving the house, she said in the most natural way: You won't believe me but thanks be to God, I'm still a virgin.

Sean started the engine and putted through the marina waters, and Adam had the nerve to plop onto the seat across the aisle from me. Sean reached the edge of the idle zone and cranked the boat into top speed. Adam called to me so softly I could barely catch his words over the motor, “Close your legs.” “What for? I waxed!” I looked down to make sure. This was okay now, because Sean was facing the other way and couldn’t hear me in the din. Indeed, I was clean. I spread my legs even wider, put my arms on the back of the seat, and generally took up as much room as possible, like a boy. I glanced back over at Adam. “Does it make you uncomfortable for me to sit this way?” He watched me warily. “Yes.” “May I suggest that this is your problem and not mine?” He licked his lips and bent toward me. “If it keeps Sean from asking you out, it’s going to be your problem, and you’re going to make it my problem.” “Speaking of which,” I said, crossing my legs like a girl. “Thanks for staying out of my way. How the hell am I supposed to get Sean to ask me out when he’s all pissy?” “You wanted me to lose to him at team calisthenics? That was too sweet to miss.” “You didn’t have to win by quite so much, Adam. You knew I needed him in a good mood. You didn’t have to rub it in.” Adam grinned. “And you wanted me to stop growing?” “Do not make a joke about your size. If you can’t think of anything to talk about except your large size, please say nothing at all.

On the first day I walked into Simon’s bustling headquarters, just across from City Hall, I encountered an intense young fund-raiser sitting in an open cubicle, working his quarry over the phone. Curious, I stopped to watch the spectacle. “Five hundred bucks? Five hundred bucks! You know what you’re telling me? You don’t give a shit about Israel,” the intense, wiry young man shouted at God knows which mover and shaker on the other end of the line. “I’d be embarrassed for you to take your five hundred bucks.” The kid hung up and stared at the phone, which rang an instant later. “Yeah, that’s better,” he said, in a markedly calmer tone. “Thanks.” Even at twenty-four, Rahm Emanuel had a gift for getting his point across, a quality I would see on display many times as we teamed up in the decades to come.

Remember, the conversation between you and your horse must never be dull or inert. It should be, “Ask, receive, give. Ask, receive, give." Ask with your body and legs; receive through your body into your hands; give primarily with the hands, but also with your body and legs, so that you can ask all over again, receive again, and give again. The give is your thanks. If you don’t give, you must ask harder the next time, and even harder after that, until you end up with a dead or resistant horse. I have heard Major Hans Wikne, coach of the Swedish dressage team and head of the Swedish National School for Instructors, say so many times, “For everything you ask from your horse, your must give back a little more. The give is more important than the take." Riding is much more than a push-me-pull-you between leg and hand.

Until now. You and I are a mis-Match, Ellie, because I hacked into your servers to manipulate our results.” “Rubbish,” Ellie said, secretly balking at the notion. She folded her arms indignantly. “Our servers are more secure than almost every major international company across the world. We receive so many hacking attempts, yet no one gets in. We have the best software and team money can buy to protect us against people like you.” “You’re right about some of that. But what your system didn’t take into account was your own vanity. Do you remember receiving an email some time ago with the subject ‘Businesswoman of the Year Award’? You couldn’t help but open it.” Ellie vaguely remembered reading the email as it had been sent to her private account, which only a few people had knowledge of. “Attached to it was a link you clicked on and that opened to nothing, didn’t it?” Matthew continued. “Well, it wasn’t nothing to me, because your click released a tiny, undetectable piece of tailor-made malware that allowed me to remotely access your network and work my way around your files. Everything you had access to, I had access to. Then I simply replicated my strand of DNA to mirror image yours, sat back and waited for you to get in touch. That’s why I came for a job interview, to learn a little more about the programming and systems you use. Please thank your head of personnel for leaving me alone in the room for a few moments with her laptop while she searched for a working camera to take my head shot. That was a huge help in accessing your network. Oh, and tell her to frisk interviewees for lens deflectors next time—they’re pocket-sized gadgets that render digital cameras useless.

to thank my beta readers, Jessica, Dee, Andrea, Carrie, Jill, Kolleen and Rebecca. You made this story so much better!! I want to thank every blogger and reader who took a chance with me as a new author and helped me spread the word. You have my most heartfelt gratitude. To my street team. . .you rock !!! Last but not least, I would like to thank my family. I would never be here if not for their love and support. Mom, you taught me that books are important, and for that I will always be grateful. Dad, thank you for always being convinced that I should reach for the stars. To my sister, whose numerous ahem. . .legendary replies will serve as an inspiration for many books to come, I say thank you for your support and I love you, kid. To my husband, who always, no matter what, believed in me and supported me through all this whether by happily taking on every chore I overlooked

As I stepped off the mat, Aimee ran over and gave me a hug. Lexie rushed up to me, face beaming, and said, “Hey, you caught your Thatchev!” “I did!” I said, high-fiving her. “Thank you!” Everyone else was looking at us, completely puzzled. They were probably wondering, Why on earth is she so excited? She just fell off the bars twice! But I didn’t care right then. I’d caught my Thatchev, and I was on my way to Nationals. One month later, it wouldn’t be the Thatchev that would put me out of contention for the USA women’s junior team by just one spot—it would be that dang Amanar. Maybe if I’d spent more time practicing the vault, I might’ve gotten picked. But the same thing that’s true in gymnastics is also true in life: You can’t go back. The best you can do is forgive yourself, take a deep breath, and get to work on the next challenge. But that doesn’t mean you can’t bawl first—and let me tell you, I did.

You didn’t tell me you were a horse whisperer.” “I’m not—at least I don’t think I am.” “Well, you nearly gave me a heart attack. If you were one of my men, I’d fire you on the spot for being reckless.” “I’m not one of your men.” “Thank God for that.” Still, he needed to make his point. “You could have been killed. I’ve seen stallions go crazy and injure experienced horsemen, men who raised them. You took a real chance stepping in here.” “I’m sorry I frightened you. I saw how afraid Chinook was, and I just had to do something.” He handed her the curry comb. “Most people who saw a stallion in that state would see only aggression and feel afraid. But you saw that the stallion was afraid, and so you had no fear. You amaze me.” She looked up at him and smiled. “That goes both ways.” He was glad to hear that. In the course of the evening, he’d come to realize that he loved her. For the second time in his life, he’d fallen head over heels in love with a woman.

Once he stared the car, I said, “I just want you to know I’m paying for my meal, because I know it’ll be full price, and I didn’t want you to think I was expecting you to pay for it, because this isn’t a date. It’s just the team and the host sisters, brothers, whatever, getting together to have some fun tonight since it’s raining…or was raining…it’s obviously not raining now. And you’re just giving me a ride, not a meal.” Shut me up! Shut me up! Shut me up! He shifted into reverse, then backed out of the driveway. “I’m buying your dinner.” “No, really--” “Dani.” It was the first time I could recall him actually saying my name. I loved the way it just rumbled, his voice so deep, so perfect. I wanted him to say it again, over and over. But he’d stopped in the middle of the street. I figured any minute Dad was going to come barreling out of the house to find out what was wrong. I looked over at Jason. “I’m buying your dinner, as my thanks to you for convincing your family to host me. Just accept it, okay?” I nodded. “Okay.” He drove, and I settled into my seat, wondering what other surprises the night might hold.

Thanks.” “For what?” “For everything.” I shrug and my smile wobbles a little. “Thanks for talking me into taking this trip instead of staying home and wallowing in self-pity. For sticking by my side, but also giving me space. For…being my best friend.” She gives the impression of being cool, clipped, controlled, but deep down Fanny is a smushy-mushy sentimental marshmallow. She grabs me and gives me a fierce hug. “It’s just my time,” she finally says, pulling away. “You know?” I shake my head. I don’t know. “Being best friends is like playing baseball. Right now, it’s my turn to step up to the plate and carry the team.” She lifts her chin and looks up at me with her trademark confidence. “Don’t worry. Your time at bat will come.” “I hope I will carry the team as well as you have.” “You will.” “Wait!” I laugh. “Did you just make a baseball analogy?” “Yeah. So?” “The Americanization of Fanny is complete.” I stroke my chin and chuckle maniacally. “Funny!” Fanny snaps. “I don’t think so!” “It starts with reality television binges and baseball analogies. Soon, you’ll be forgoing French chocolate for Hershey’s bars and baguettes for Wonder Bread.

A Note from Zibby: Hi! Thanks so much for coming by! I truly, truly hope that the thoughtful content my team and I produce daily helps you make the most of your (very limited!) time. I mean, if we don’t make time for what’s important, life will just pass us by in a blur of emails and to-do lists. And life is way too short for that. So let this programming enhance your life, not take it over. * Learn about a new book and then go read it. * Hear from an amazing author you’ve always loved and then attend their event. * Get some sex tips and actually try them out. * Receive writing advice from a bestselling pro and then write the essay or book you know you have in you. * Rethink weight loss and change what you eat or how you work out that day. * Message with someone you meet in our grief community over your shared loss. * Offer travel tips to someone who can use them. * Find a product you love or a gift that will delight someone. * Read a personal essay and feel deeply understood. * Connect, connect, connect. But we must find time to enjoy life, before our time runs out. So let’s outrun it while we can. Lace up, friends. Here we go. Warmly, Zibby

The team is showing its appreciation to the host families by taking them to a water park on Sunday. I know Mac is going out of town, but I thought you might still want to go. I mean, not as a date or anything. I’m going to invite the whole family.” “You don’t have to work Sunday?” “I got scheduled off.” “Sounds like fun. We could pack a picnic lunch--” “I’ll take care of that. As my thank you. All you have to do is bring yourself.” “And a bathing suit.” He grinned. “Yeah, and a bathing suit.” “And a towel. And suntan lotion…” “Maybe it’d be simpler if I just said I’ll take care of the tickets and eats.” “Okay, but I’ll go ahead and warn you not to take it personally that Mom and Dad aren’t really into water parks. It’s that whole not-using-the-exercise-equipment-as-intended thing Dad has going.” His grin grew. “I won’t take it personally.” “Okay, then, Sunday.” As though suddenly realized how intimate it seemed to be in my bedroom, he cleared his throat and took a step back. He gave my room one more look and took another step back. “It’s amazing what a room can reveal.” Then he walked down the hallway and knocked on Tiffany’s door. I wondered what he’d discover looking into her room.

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They were all joking about the party at my place when they walked away. As I uncapped my drink, I noticed Michael was hanging back a bit. “Got something on your mind?” I called out, gesturing at him with my chin. He was a good player, he worked hard on the field, and I respected him. I got the feeling, though, that I wasn’t going to like what he wanted to say. I could tell by the hesitation in his face and body language. He probably disagreed with some of the plays I wanted to try tonight and didn’t want to piss me off in fear I would freeze him out on the field. But I wasn’t like that. I left personal shit in the locker room. There was no room for drama in the game. He walked back over in front of me as he adjusted the strap on his shoulder. “I’m not sure I should say anything.” “Just say it, man. It’s cool.” “I saw your girl this morning.” He started, and everything in me went cold. This wasn’t about football. This was personal. “You looking at Rimmel?” I asked, my voice calm and low. His eyes widened a little, but he shook his head. “No, man. I probably wouldn’t have known it was her, but she was wearing your hoodie.” I nodded for him to continue. “She was in the hall, outside her class,” he said, glancing at me. He needed to get to the fucking point already. I was losing patience. “That guy Zach was with her. It looked pretty intense.” I jerked upright. “What?” I growled. What the fuck was Rimmel doing with Zach? Why was he talking to her? “He was grabbing her arm. Jerking her around pretty good.” Red tinged my vision and adrenaline started pumping in my veins. “What did you just say?” Michael nodded grimly. “It’s why I noticed them. He grabbed her and she cried out. She told him to let go, but he just jerked her more. She almost fell.” A noise rumbled out of my chest and anger so swift and hot that it hurt filled me. “Tell me you pulled him off her,” I intoned. “I was going to. I called out to them and started forward, but that’s when he let her go and walked away.” I was going to kill him. Dead. “I asked her if she was okay. I don’t think she knew I’m on the team with you.” “Probably not,” I muttered, still trying to control the anger spiraling out of control inside me. “She said she was.” He continued, but I heard the doubt in his voice. “But?” The word came out harsher than I intended, but he didn’t seem to notice. “But her wrist was pretty red. Looked like it was going to bruise.” Thought ceased in my head. Rationality evaporated. “Thanks for telling me,” I said and rushed away in the opposite direction of my next class.

Legacy items. That’s the term we used to describe these golden moments. Sometimes we even knew what it meant. Taking out bin Laden was a legacy item. So was rescuing the auto industry, bringing troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, or repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” But just as often, we imagined our legacy with the starry eyes of a hobo describing the Big Rock Candy Mountain. We dreamed of a distant utopia, a sunny political paradise, where the credit flows like a waterfall and approvals stay sky-high. We weren’t there yet. With twenty months to go until POTUS left office, our place in history was far from certain. But inside the building, something had undoubtedly changed. President Obama’s jaunty, let’s-go-for-it attitude was infectious. We no longer felt like turtles in our shells. Our growing confidence was matched by growing competence as well. That’s not to disparage the early days: as White Houses go, Obama’s functioned fairly smoothly from the start. Still, the longer POTUS ran the institution, the more we learned from our mistakes. After the Healthcare.gov disaster, we began “red-teaming” a growing number of big decisions, assigning designated cynics to guard against undiluted hope. Confronted with its lack of diversity, Obamaworld gradually became a place where rooms full of white guys were the exception and not the rule. Baby steps, I know. But these baby steps made us a unicorn among bureaucracies—we improved over time. Somewhat to my astonishment, so did I. At the risk of sounding boastful, I had now gone two full years without angering a sovereign nation. Even better, the White House finally felt like home. There was no one moment when the transformation happened. I didn’t burst forth from a cocoon. It was more like learning a language. You study, you practice, you embarrass yourself. And then one day someone cuts you off in traffic and you call them a motherfucker in perfect Portuguese. Whoa, you think. I guess I’m learning.

The phone rang. It was a familiar voice. It was Alan Greenspan. Paul O'Neill had tried to stay in touch with people who had served under Gerald Ford, and he'd been reasonably conscientious about it. Alan Greenspan was the exception. In his case, the effort was constant and purposeful. When Greenspan was the chairman of Ford's Council of Economic Advisers, and O'Neill was number two at OMB, they had become a kind of team. Never social so much. They never talked about families or outside interests. It was all about ideas: Medicare financing or block grants - a concept that O'Neill basically invented to balance federal power and local autonomy - or what was really happening in the economy. It became clear that they thought well together. President Ford used to have them talk about various issues while he listened. After a while, each knew how the other's mind worked, the way married couples do. In the past fifteen years, they'd made a point of meeting every few months. It could be in New York, or Washington, or Pittsburgh. They talked about everything, just as always. Greenspan, O'Neill told a friend, "doesn't have many people who don't want something from him, who will talk straight to him. So that's what we do together - straight talk." O'Neill felt some straight talk coming in. "Paul, I'll be blunt. We really need you down here," Greenspan said. "There is a real chance to make lasting changes. We could be a team at the key moment, to do the things we've always talked about." The jocular tone was gone. This was a serious discussion. They digressed into some things they'd "always talked about," especially reforming Medicare and Social Security. For Paul and Alan, the possibility of such bold reinventions bordered on fantasy, but fantasy made real. "We have an extraordinary opportunity," Alan said. Paul noticed that he seemed oddly anxious. "Paul, your presence will be an enormous asset in the creation of sensible policy." Sensible policy. This was akin to prayer from Greenspan. O'Neill, not expecting such conviction from his old friend, said little. After a while, he just thanked Alan. He said he always respected his counsel. He said he was thinking hard about it, and he'd call as soon as he decided what to do. The receiver returned to its cradle. He thought about Greenspan. They were young men together in the capital. Alan stayed, became the most noteworthy Federal Reserve Bank chairman in modern history and, arguably the most powerful public official of the past two decades. O'Neill left, led a corporate army, made a fortune, and learned lessons - about how to think and act, about the importance of outcomes - that you can't ever learn in a government. But, he supposed, he'd missed some things. There were always trade-offs. Talking to Alan reminded him of that. Alan and his wife, Andrea Mitchell, White House correspondent for NBC news, lived a fine life. They weren't wealthy like Paul and Nancy. But Alan led a life of highest purpose, a life guided by inquiry. Paul O'Neill picked up the telephone receiver, punched the keypad. "It's me," he said, always his opening. He started going into the details of his trip to New York from Washington, but he's not much of a phone talker - Nancy knew that - and the small talk trailed off. "I think I'm going to have to do this." She was quiet. "You know what I think," she said. She knew him too well, maybe. How bullheaded he can be, once he decides what's right. How he had loved these last few years as a sovereign, his own man. How badly he was suited to politics, as it was being played. And then there was that other problem: she'd almost always been right about what was best for him. "Whatever, Paul. I'm behind you. If you don't do this, I guess you'll always regret it." But it was clearly about what he wanted, what he needed. Paul thanked her. Though somehow a thank-you didn't seem appropriate. And then he realized she was crying.

I find that while each partner might have needed some specific coaching, the real tests we faced were basically the same, season after season. We had to learn to move as a team. We had to master complex, carefully timed choreography. We had to face the hot lights and live action and the idea that millions of eyes were upon us. But beyond that, I needed to inspire and instill confidence in each person I coached and danced with. I needed to communicate with an open heart and empathetic, encouraging words. I had to critique usefully and praise strategically. I also needed to be my authentic self--exposing my personal vulnerabilities to win their trust. Ultimately, I had to make each of my partners embrace not just me, but also her own sill and power. Every partner I’ve danced with has it within them to kick ass and climb mountains. When you put yourself in a situation when you’re vulnerable, that’s when your power is revealed. And it’s always there; it’s part of your DNA. It’s like a woman walking into a room looking for the diamond necklace and realizing it’s around her neck. I’m not changing any of these ladies; I’m helping them rediscover themselves. And truth be told, that was never my goal. I never walked into a studio thinking, I’m going to transform this person’s life. I’m no therapist! I was just trying to put some damn routines together! But I realized after all these seasons that the dance is a metaphor for the journey. Every one of my partners has had a very different one. What they brought to the table was different; what they needed to overcome was different. But despite that, the same thing happens time and time again: the walls come tumbling down and they find their true selves. That I have anything at all to do with that is both thrilling and humbling. In the beginning, I thought I was just along for the ride--army candy. To touch a person’s life, to help them find their footing, is a gift, and I’m thankful I get to do it season after season.

In fact, the same basic ingredients can easily be found in numerous start-up clusters in the United States and around the world: Austin, Boston, New York, Seattle, Shanghai, Bangalore, Istanbul, Stockholm, Tel Aviv, and Dubai. To discover the secret to Silicon Valley’s success, you need to look beyond the standard origin story. When people think of Silicon Valley, the first things that spring to mind—after the HBO television show, of course—are the names of famous start-ups and their equally glamorized founders: Apple, Google, Facebook; Jobs/ Wozniak, Page/ Brin, Zuckerberg. The success narrative of these hallowed names has become so universally familiar that people from countries around the world can tell it just as well as Sand Hill Road venture capitalists. It goes something like this: A brilliant entrepreneur discovers an incredible opportunity. After dropping out of college, he or she gathers a small team who are happy to work for equity, sets up shop in a humble garage, plays foosball, raises money from sage venture capitalists, and proceeds to change the world—after which, of course, the founders and early employees live happily ever after, using the wealth they’ve amassed to fund both a new generation of entrepreneurs and a set of eponymous buildings for Stanford University’s Computer Science Department. It’s an exciting and inspiring story. We get the appeal. There’s only one problem. It’s incomplete and deceptive in several important ways. First, while “Silicon Valley” and “start-ups” are used almost synonymously these days, only a tiny fraction of the world’s start-ups actually originate in Silicon Valley, and this fraction has been getting smaller as start-up knowledge spreads around the globe. Thanks to the Internet, entrepreneurs everywhere have access to the same information. Moreover, as other markets have matured, smart founders from around the globe are electing to build companies in start-up hubs in their home countries rather than immigrating to Silicon Valley.

As a small business owner, every dollar matters. So when I was scammed out of $58,000 by a fake investment broker, it didn’t just affect my savings it threatened the stability of my business and the people who rely on me. The broker had been smooth, persuasive, and professional. Everything seemed legitimate until, without warning, all communication stopped and the money was gone. I felt helpless. Reporting the crime led to slow responses and little hope of recovery. That’s when I started digging through forums and online communities to see if anyone had experienced something similar. I came across a Reddit post where someone shared their success with a service called CRANIX ETHICAL SOLUTIONS HAVEN. Intrigued and with little to lose, I contacted them. From the very beginning, CRANIX ETHICAL SOLUTIONS HAVEN set themselves apart. They were direct, honest, and never overpromised. They explained the steps they’d take combining cyber investigation with legal action to pursue the scammer and retrieve the stolen funds. I appreciated that they treated my case with urgency and respect. The process was surprisingly fast. Within a few weeks, their team had traced digital breadcrumbs and identified the individuals behind the scam. They applied pressure using legal avenues and negotiation tactics. The outcome? I recovered 95% of my money. I was stunned. I had mentally written that money off as a hard lesson, but thanks to their efforts, I got most of it back. Throughout the entire process, their communication was steady and clear. I never had to chase updates or wonder what was happening. Their team was not only skilled but genuinely committed to helping people recover from financial fraud. If you’re facing a similar nightmare, I urge you to reach out to CRANIX ETHICAL SOLUTIONS HAVEN. They turned what felt like an impossible situation into a success story. There are real recovery experts out there who can help you just have to know where to look. EMAIL: cranixethicalsolutionshaven @ post . com WHATSAPP: +.4.4.7.4.6.0.6.2.2.7.3.0 WEBSITE: https: // cranixethicalsolutionshaven . info

Me: You fucking whore. Hannah: What? Me: You know what. This pizza! Hannah: I don’t know what you’re talking about. Me: Your name is on the receipt. Hannah: CRAP! I thought it’d take you at least ten minutes to figure out it was me. Me: Yeah, crap! I am fucking mortified, you idiot. I’m trying to keep a low profile, but that delivery guy probably had to go talk to the guys at the counter to figure out where I was. I am humiliated, and you are the worst! Don’t you have your own book to write? How do you have time for this? Hannah: I’m shaking so hard with laughter, it’s difficult to type. Me: I had my earbuds in, so I didn’t hear him calling my name. He listed off the food you bought for a football team and then handed it all to me—the chubby ginger creeping in the corner. Goddamn you! Hannah: Is it good, though? I got you extra dipping sauces for those parm breadsticks. That cost extra, you know. I ain’t cheap. Me: I can’t eat it because my mortification has killed my appetite! But…this does give me an excuse to try out the fountain pop machine, so…silver lining. Hannah: My eyes are wet from laughing so hard. Me: Yuck it up, yucky yuckerson. God, I was in the middle of writing an anal scene, so I was super in the zone too…it’s no wonder I didn’t hear him. Hannah: STOP. MY STOMACH IS KILLING ME…ON ACCOUNT OF ALL THE LAUGHING. Me: Well played, whore. Well played. And it’s the burn that keeps on burning b/c my inner cheap girl will NOT let me throw these leftovers away. So I’m going to have to carry them out of here. Hannah: Oh, I was counting on that. Want to hear something horrible? Me: What? Hannah: I was going to do a sub delivery, but then I decided the pizza boxes were more embarrassing. Me: You’re dead to me.   Fifteen minutes later.   Hannah: So I’ve been picturing you sulking and refusing to eat for the past fifteen minutes and then finally giving up and eating it anyway. Am I close? Me: OMG, it’s like you’re here with me. That’s exactly what I did. This food is delicious btw. But I’m still not thankful. Hannah: But you’re always welcome. ;) Best $53 I ever spent.

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I got your flowers. They’re beautiful, thank you.” A gorgeous riot of Gerber daisies and lilies in a rainbow of reds, pinks, yellows and oranges. “Welcome. Bet Duncan loved sending one of his guys out to pick them up for me.” She could hear the smile in his voice, imagined the devilish twinkle in his eyes. “Oh, he did. Said it’s probably the first time in the history of WITSEC that a U.S. Marshal delivered flowers to one of their witnesses.” A low chuckle. “Well, this was a special circumstance, so they helped me out.” “I loved the card you sent with them the best though.” Proud of you. Give ‘em hell tomorrow. He’d signed it Nathan rather than Nate, which had made her smile. “I had no idea you were romantic,” she continued. “All these interesting things I’m learning about you.” She hadn’t been able to wipe the silly smile off her face after one of the security team members had knocked on her door and handed them to her with a goofy smile and a, “special delivery”. “Baby, you haven’t seen anything yet. When the trial’s done you’re gonna get all the romance you can handle, and then some.” “Really?” Now that was something for a girl to look forward to, and it sure as hell did the trick in taking her mind off her worries. “Well I’m all intrigued, because it’s been forever since I was romanced. What do you have in mind? Candlelit dinners? Going to the movies? Long walks? Lazy afternoon picnics?” “Not gonna give away my hand this early on, but I’ll take those into consideration.” “And what’s the key to your heart, by the way? I mean, other than the thing I did to you this morning.” “What thing is that? Refresh my memory,” he said, a teasing note in his voice. She smiled, enjoying the light banter. It felt good to let her worry about tomorrow go and focus on what she had to look forward to when this was all done. Being with him again, seeing her family, getting back to her life. A life that would hopefully include Nathan in a romantic capacity. “Waking you up with my mouth.” He gave a low groan. “I loved every second of it. But think simpler.” Simpler than sex? For a guy like him? “Food, then. I bet you’re a sucker for a home-cooked meal. Am I right?” He chuckled. “That works too, but it’s still not the key.” “Then what?” “You.” She blinked, her heart squeezing at the conviction behind his answer. “Me?” “Yeah, just you. And maybe bacon,” he added, a smile in his voice. He was so freaking adorable. “So you’re saying if I made and served you a BLT, you’d be putty in my hands?” Seemed hard to imagine, but okay. A masculine rumble filled her ears. “God, yeah.” She couldn’t help the sappy smile that spread across her face. “Wow, you are easy. And I can definitely arrange that.” “I can hardly wait. Will you serve it to me naked? Or maybe wearing just a frilly little apron and heels?” She smothered a laugh, but a clear image of her doing just that popped into her head, serving him the sandwich in that sexy outfit while watching his eyes go all heated. “Depends on how good you are.” “Oh, baby, I’ll be so good to you, you have no idea.

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Her enormous eyes were staring straight into his silver ones. He couldn’t look away, couldn’t let go of her hand. He couldn’t have moved if his life depended on it. He was lost in those blue-violet eyes, somewhere in their mysterious, haunting, sexy depths. What was it he had decided? Decreed? He was not going to allow her anywhere near Peter’s funeral. Why was his resolve fading away to nothing? He had reasons, good reasons. He was certain of it. Yet now, drowning in her huge eyes, his thoughts on the length of her lashes, the curve of her cheek, the feel of her skin, he couldn’t think of denying her. After all, she hadn’t tried to defy him; she didn’t know he had made the decision to keep her away from Peter’s funeral. She was including him in the plans, as if they were a unit, a team. She was asking his advice. Would it be so terrible to please her over this? It was important to her. He blinked to keep from falling into her gaze and found himself staring at the perfection of her mouth. The way her lips parted so expectantly. The way the tip of her tongue darted out to moisten her full lower lip. Almost a caress. He groaned. An invitation. He braced himself to keep from leaning over and tracing the exact path with his own tongue. He was being tortured. Tormented. Her perfect lips formed a slight frown. He wanted to kiss it right off her mouth. “What is it, Gregori?” She reached up to touch his lips with her fingertip. His heart nearly jumped out of his chest. He caught her wrist and clamped it against his pumping heart. “Savannah,” he whispered. An ache. It came out that way. An ache. He knew it. She knew it. God, he wanted her with every cell in his body. Untamed. Wild. Crazy. He wanted to bury himself so deep inside her that she would never get him out. Her hand trembled in answer, a slight movement rather like the flutter of butterfly wings. He felt it all the way through his body. “It is all right, mon amour,” he said softly. “I am not asking for anything.” “I know you’re not. I’m not denying you anything. I know we need to have time to become friends, but I’m not going to deny what I feel already. When you’re close to me, my body temperature jumps about a thousand degrees.” Her blue eyes were dark and beckoning, steady on his. He touched her mind very gently, almost tenderly, slipped past her guard and knew what courage it took for her to make the admission. She was nervous, even afraid, but willing to meet him halfway. The realization nearly brought him to his knees. A muscle jumped in his jaw, and the silver eyes heated to molten mercury, but his face was as impassive as ever. “I think you are a witch, Savannah, casting a spell over me.” His hand cupped her face, his thumb sliding over her delicate cheekbone. She moved closer, and he felt her need for comfort, for reassurance. Her arms slid tentatively around his waist. Her head rested on his sternum. Gregori held her tightly, simply held her, waiting for her trembling to cease. Waiting for the warmth of his body to seep into hers. Gregori’s hand came up to stroke the thick length of silken, ebony hair, taking pleasure in the simple act. It brought a measure of peace to both of them. He would never have believed what a small thing like holding a woman could do to a man. She was turning his heart inside out; unfamiliar emotions surged wildly through him and wreaked havoc with his well-ordered life. In his arms, next to his hard strength, she felt fragile, delicate, like an exotic flower that could be easily broken. “Do not worry about Peter, ma petite,” he whispered into the silken strands of her hair. “We will see to his resting place tomorrow.” “Thank you, Gregori,” Savannah said. “It matters a lot to me.” He lifted her easily into his arms. “I know. It would be simpler if I did not. Come to my bed, chérie, where you belong.

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Reject the tribalism. Reject the calls to fight the other team. The other party. The other species. The other football club. The other family down the street that has a bigger interstellar corvette than you. Don’t demonize the other candidate. Don’t hate the opponent. Oppose them. Debate them. Disagree with them. But then, at the end of the day, break bread with them. Because I promise you this: we will all need each other again. And again. And again. Thank you.

Thank God Ahab and Meshach were out of sight. He’d worked for Tarlander more than once and would surely have been recognized. “Was that who I think it was?” she asked Benjamin when he waited for her at a bridge crossing a wide creek. “Yessuh.” Benjamin shook his head. “Dat close.” He turned his horse. “Not far now.” They gathered in a small clearing bordering the creek, where Daniel awaited them. He was already gathering sticks for a fire. Jesselynn reached behind her to help a groggy Thaddeus climb up on the seat. “You been a mighty good boy. I’m right proud of you.” “Hungry?” He reached up and wrapped his arms around her neck. Burrowing into her chest like a little gopher, he repeated with more insistence. “Hungry. Want milk?” Jesselynn sighed. Where would they get milk Other fresh food too, for that matter. Her eyes felt as if they’d been rolling in the Sahara Desert, and her rear felt permanently glued to the hard seat. “I git some.” Benjamin remounted his horse. “You’d best take the mule, then,” Jesselynn said. “Oh.” He dismounted with a nod. “ ’Phelia, you got a jug?” Meshach unhitched the team and removed the harness from both horse and mule, then slipped a bridle with short reins on the mule. “You hurry.” After handing Benjamin a couple of their precious store of coins, Jesselynn climbed over the wagon wheel and, when her feet felt solid ground, leaned against the wheel until her knees no longer felt like buckling. She propped

Another big developer in New York had a new condominium project I desperately wanted to sell in Park Slope. I pitched my heart out for this project, but the developer didn’t go with me—he thought I was too small at the time. I could have just been annoyed or angry. Too small?? Really? Or I could follow back to show that this perceived flaw was ultimately something that didn’t matter at all. I decided to send the developer a gift as a thank-you for letting me pitch him. I ordered a 10-foot fig tree that took four people to deliver and had it sent to his office with a note that simply read, “IMPACT.” My new development team may have been small at the time, but make no mistake, I know how to make an impact.

Laszlo Bock, the head of the People Operations department at Google, walked onto the stage and thanked everyone for coming. “The biggest thing you should take away from this work is that how teams work matters, in a lot of ways, more than who is on them,” he said.

Meredith and Yvonne. Thank you to the members of my street team, Hardt and Soul. HS members got the first

I met with Chad Logan a few days after our first get-together. I told him that I would explain my point of view and then let him decide whether he wanted to work with me on strategy. I said: I think you have a lot of ambition, but you don’t have a strategy. I don’t think it would be useful, right now, to work with your managers on strategies for meeting the 20/20 goal. What I would advise is that you first work to discover the very most promising opportunities for the business. Those opportunities may be internal, fixing bottlenecks and constraints in the way people work, or external. To do this, you should probably pull together a small team of people and take a month to do a review of who your buyers are, who you compete with, and what opportunities exist. It’s normally a good idea to look very closely at what is changing in your business, where you might get a jump on the competition. You should open things up so there are as many useful bits of information on the table as possible. If you want, I can help you structure some of this process and, maybe, help you ask some of the right questions. The end result will be a strategy that is aimed at channeling energy into what seem to be one or two of the most attractive opportunities, where it looks like you can make major inroads or breakthroughs. I can’t tell you in advance how large such opportunities are, or where they may be. I can’t tell you in advance how fast revenues will grow. Perhaps you will want to add new services, or cut back on doing certain things that don’t make a profit. Perhaps you will find it more promising to focus on grabbing the graphics work that currently goes in-house, rather than to competitors. But, in the end, you should have a very short list of the most important things for the company to do. Then you will have a basis for moving forward. That is what I would do were I in your shoes. If you continue down the road you are on you will be counting on motivation to move the company forward. I cannot honestly recommend that as a way forward because business competition is not just a battle of strength and wills; it is also a competition over insights and competencies. My judgment is that motivation, by itself, will not give this company enough of an edge to achieve your goals. Chad Logan thanked me and, a week later, retained someone else to help him. The new consultant took Logan and his department managers through an exercise he called “Visioning.” The gist of it was the question “How big do you think this company can be?” In the morning they stretched their aspirations from “bigger” to “very much bigger.” Then, in the afternoon, the facilitator challenged them to an even grander vision: “Think twice as big as that,” he pressed. Logan

Xavier and Catalina sat in the VIP box, waving down at us enthusiastically and I waved back before giving Darius my full attention. The entire right side of his face was covered in mud, not to mention the rest of him and his torn jersey fell open to reveal the firm cut of his abs and that perfect V which dipped beneath his waistband. “You’re killing it out there,” I told him truthfully, flashing a sweet smile which instantly had him narrowing his eyes in suspicion. We hadn’t exactly talked much since the whole three way thing and I was really curious about how he was feeling about that. But I was even more curious as to how he was going to react when he realised I’d been playing with the sack of treasure I stole from him oh so long ago. There were plenty of times when I’d thought about the little stash we’d hidden out in the woods and wondered why he hadn’t asked for it back and there was only one reason that made any sense – he assumed I didn’t have it anymore. I didn’t know if he thought I’d sold it or destroyed it, but I was about to remind him that I still had it and see how nice he was when his temper flared. I was pretty sure there was a guide book or two out there about not poking a Dragon, but I guessed I was just too stupid to care. “Thanks. Are you looking for me to make some cheesy statement like I’m thinking of you every time I tackle someone?” he teased and I laughed, tossing my hair. He frowned at me and I had to admit that might have been overkill, but whatever. “Nice to know I’m on your mind every time you have someone pinned beneath you in the mud,” I purred. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Mildred rising to her feet in the stands with a face like an angry Koala which had been hit by a car. I didn’t have long before she came over here to stake her claim on her Dragon, but I didn’t need much time. “I think I’ve made my desire to pin you beneath me pretty clear,” Darius replied in a low voice which had my toes curling, but I wasn’t here to flirt, I was here to poke a Dragon. “Good luck for the second half,” I said in a sweet voice, reaching out touch his bicep, making sure that the gold rings pressed against his skin. Darius looked down the moment he felt his magic stir in response to the gold and his eyes widened in surprise which was quickly followed by a flash of fury as he recognised the jewellery from his stash which I’d stolen. I whirled away from him with a dark laugh before he could do any more than suck in an angry breath and I jogged out to join my squad just as they started up a chant. V – E – G – A! She’ll wipe the floor with you today! Veeeeega! Veeeeega! I fell into the moves of the chant, clapping my hands as some of the others rustled pom-poms and Darcy offered me an appreciative smile from the side of the pitch. We had little chants like that for all of the team members, but we often forgot to call out for the Heirs. The music suddenly dropped and 7 Rings by Ariana Grande burst from speakers around the stadium as we moved into a full routine filled with dance moves and tricks. The song choice turned out to be perfect for taunting a gold obsessed Dragon as well as performing a badass routine to and I couldn’t help but smirk like a psychopath throughout. Darius stood glaring at me from the side of the pitch even when Seth tried to drag him into the locker rooms and my heart thundered at the pure fury in his eyes. Remind me again why I thought poking the Dragon was a good idea because he looks ready to shit a brick! I turned my eyes from him, grinning out at the crowd as I moved between my girls, running forward as I performed a set of hand springs which ended in me throwing a huge blast of multicoloured petals up into the air so that they fell over the crowd. (Tory)

You got a taste of what it's like," Neelam says. "But I've been competing in math and science my whole life. I've been told girls can't win math competitions or can't built robots my whole life. My brothers are all pre-med, but I've been told every single day to act like a lady, to smile and be polite, to be pretty and dainty-and what boy ever has to hear that? Not once," she snaps, "and what you don't understand is that when you come into this world unprepared and unfocused and without even a fundamental understanding of what you're doing, you have nothing to fight back with. Take Mac," Neelam says, suddenly adamant. "You saw how much he favors Teo and Dash, right? But when you pointed it out he called you a bad teammate, he told you to work harder. I work hard because no matter what I do, people will always tell me I should have done more. So I do the most. Because I understand that it doesn't end here!" Neelam rises to her feet, agitated, and starts pacing in front of me. "If you really want to be an engineer, then get ready," she says with a glare at me. "Get ready to hear no. Get ready to hear you can't. Get ready for I just don't like her or she's not likable. Sure, you're lucky, you're pretty and bubbly and people like you," she adds with another look of annoyance, "but you're even worse off than I am for that, because they won't take you seriously. This team? This team only takes you seriously because Teo Luna did, and lucky you." She practically spits it at me. "Lucky you, because he doesn't take me seriously, and thanks to him nobody on our team ever will.

Celebrating those moments when we have made a difference in our work, whether it is in a caring profession or in something totally different, can boost our sense of purpose and our sense of efficacy. Yet how often do we do this, either on an individual or a team level? When teams learn from previous experiences it tends to be learning from mistakes. When we think back over our performance at work it is often to reflect on how we can do better. Yet we can also purposefully take the time to print out emails where people have thanked us, to look over cards from people who have acknowledged something meaningful we have done for them and to notice moments in our day where we’ve had a really nice time, or at least felt like we’ve done our job well. Even a small amount of this can make a really big difference.

members express their gratitude. Not too many people ever stand up to the football team. Only Chase can do it, because he’s one of them. At least he used to be. Shoshanna Weber rolls her eyes. “Please be real! Why would anybody thank him? Is there any one of us he hasn’t treated like garbage?” Brendan looks at her in surprise. “Didn’t you see what happened there?” “I saw him being a goon, like he always is. Today he was on our side. What about tomorrow? Remember what he did to my brother!” She storms off.

Acknowledgments You hold this book in your hands ◆ because Bonnie Nadell and Austen Rachlis, no matter how many bananas drafts they read (and boy were they bananas), saw what this book could be, and helped me to see it too. Because Naomi Gibbs saw it and brought it fully into itself, and was a joy to work with, like everyone at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: Larry Cooper, Chrissy Kurpeski, Liz Anderson, Michelle Triant, among others, who took my weird visions and made them manifest, and beautiful. And because Andrea Schulz, years ago, when she first heard about my day job, said, Oh, you should definitely write about that. Thank you, Kayla Rae Whitaker and Amber Sparks, for your words and your kindness. You hold this book because I lived in Boston for eleven years and worked in both fundraising and finance, and had a LOT to process. Thank you, MGH and the Prospect Research Team (2010–2014), especially Angie Morey. I loved the work, but I loved working with you all even more. You are an astounding group of human beings. Thank you, Michael and Deanna Sheridan, Wendy Price, Barry Abrams, Heather Heald, and Eddie Miller, for the years before MGH, the days of RFPs and BlackBerrys (those who know, know). I didn’t always love the work itself, but working with you was a gift, and it changed my life. Thank you, Grub Street, which I am thrilled to work for still; thank you to Michelle Hoover, Alison Murphy, and Chris Castellani, and to all the thoughtful, visionary, funny, and immensely talented writers and people in the Grub universe.

Dear Professor, I hope you are well and busy. I myself have hitched a ride with the Brion military and am about to either be a part of an intergalactically important research team – once again, thanks for mentioning this – or an intergalactically important corpse. Your ever-unlucky student, Isolde.

Thank you to my team at Revo Physiotherapy and Sports Performance, especially Matt Smith. Your guidance, both in physical rehab and mental fortitude, provided me with a plan to execute and a new hope to believe in.

First of all, I want to say a huge thank you for choosing to read Twisted Lies, the fourteenth instalment of the Kim Stone series, and to many of you for sticking with Kim Stone and her team since the very beginning.

Ruth suggests Richard first changed when he was thrown off the football team at the Lincoln School for his epilepsy. He was the quarterback, and Julian attended the Saturday games whenever he wasn’t away laying track. Richard was an excellent athlete and was very proud about being the quarterback. He was a fast runner and could think quickly on his feet. However, when Richard had had a grand mal seizure at the end of one game, the coach had unceremoniously and without apology thrown him off the team. There was medication Richard could have been given, but no one ever suggested it. Richard was very disappointed; it wasn’t his fault he had blackouts, and it was unfair for him to be thrown off the team. He protested to the coach, but the coach said, “If something happens to you while you’re playing, it’ll be all my fault. No, thank you.

#11forJacob Movement Jacob Wetterling loved sports. His dad coached his soccer team. He wanted to be a football player. He was a skilled hockey goalie. Jacob also believed in a fair and just world, a world where all children know they are special and deserve to be safe. We ask you to be part of #11forJacob. This movement centers around 11 simple traits that Jacob valued: Be fair Be kind Be understanding Be honest Be thankful Be a good sport Be a good friend Be joyful Be generous Be gentle with others Be positive

Note: I am sure that now they will approach Medium to stop me from writing. Let’s see what happens. “A genuine person or celebrity doesn’t need a certificate or blue tick. Such ways are blackmailing your passion, emotion, or willingness. Criminals and money-mongers misuse and try to earn in an ugly and easy way. This trend also discriminates against others who cannot afford such an awkward notion.” Istay determined every day. I cannot tolerate liars and those who misuse their authority and attempt to victimize the righteous for their will and purpose in an illegitimate way to please their godfathers of the mafia and international criminal intelligence agencies. I am pretty sure, after reviewing again the replies from the Twitter team that mirror and endorse the Twitter team, that someone works for intelligence agencies or criminal and mafia groups. Since the beginning months of this year, I have been continuously victimized without specifying why I was posting the wrong things. I am going to publish a few emails that will exhibit the picture of how I was being victimized, harassed, and even threatened about things that I was neither aware of nor that the team explained. I was already under the attacks of criminals and even the gang of filthy-minded gays who were suffering from mental issues and sexual frustration; knowing it, I am not gay. In the Twitter team, the presence of such ones is not excluded since I felt a similar style of victimization. How do they dare to adopt such mean tactics to gain their will and desire? This reply email shows that a screenshot article has been displayed since 2020. After four years, it became an issue for someone in the Twitter team who continued to lock my account and tag the restriction flag. Text of my emails; “I am still uncertain about what to post and what not to post. You didn’t specify why my account was locked, whether it was because of the content I removed or something else. Is it permissible for me to share media and social media links in which my quotes are mentioned? My writings do not contain any personal attacks; nonetheless, thank you.” “You locked my Twitter, @EhsanSehgal, again; you know why you are doing it. Now, I can say only goodbye to my locked account and enjoy your terror. It is not a protection of my account; it is victimization. No more requests to unlock my account. Someone of angelic character will do it without my request. Shame on you all, involved ones.” Team replied; Hello, “We had a look at your account, and it appears that everything is now resolved! If that’s not the case, please reply to this message, and we’ll continue to help. Thanks,” X Support This was a screenshot article from Wikipedia about me on my profile that was illegitimately removed by such people as the Twitter team forced me to remove. Despite that, they continued locking my account to identify and provide an ID or passport. I did that twice and identified several times, but the team seemed not satisfied since their goal was something else; they would not approach nor be able to do it. To stop such criminal torture, I deactivated my account and decided never to come back there again.

Just like a city, parts of the Archives teemed with activity. The Scriptorium held rows of desks where scrivs toiled over translations or copied faded texts into new books with fresh, dark ink. The Sorting Hall buzzed with activity as scrivs sifted and reshelved books. The Buggery was not at all what I expected, thank goodness. Instead, it proved to be the place where new books were decontaminated before being added to the collection. Apparently all manner of creatures love books, some devouring parchment and leather, others with a taste for paper or glue. Bookworms were the least of them, and after listening to a few of Wilem’s stories I wanted nothing more than to wash my hands. Cataloger’s Mew, the Bindery, Bolts, Palimpsest, all of them were busy as beehives, full of quiet, industrious scrivs. But other parts of the Archives were quite the opposite of busy. The acquisitions office, for example, was tiny and perpetually dark. Through the window I could see that one entire wall of the office was nothing but a huge map with cities and roads marked in such detail that it looked like a snarled loom. The map was covered in a layer of clear alchemical lacquer, and there were notes written at various points in red grease pencil, detailing rumors of desirable books and the last known positions of the various acquisition teams. Tomes was like a great public garden. Any student was free to come and read the books shelved there. Or they could submit a request to the scrivs, who would grudgingly head off into the Stacks to find if not the exact book you wanted, then at least something closely related. But the Stacks comprised the vast majority of the Archives. That was where the books actually lived. And just like in any city, there were good neighborhoods and bad. In the good neighborhoods everything was properly organized and cataloged. In these places a ledger-entry would lead you to a book as simply as a pointing finger. Then there were the bad neighborhoods. Sections of the Archives that were forgotten, or neglected, or simply too troublesome to deal with at the moment. These were places where books were organized under old catalogs, or under no catalog at all. There were walls of shelves like mouths with missing teeth, where longgone scrivs had cannibalized an old catalog to bring books into whatever system was fashionable at the time. Thirty years ago two entire floors had gone from good neighborhood to bad when the Larkin ledger-books were burned by a rival faction of scrivs. And, of course, there was the four-plate door. The secret at the heart of the city. It was nice to go strolling in the good neighborhoods. It was pleasant to go looking for a book and find it exactly where it should be. It was easy. Comforting. Quick. But the bad neighborhoods were fascinating. The books there were dusty and disused. When you opened one, you might read words no eyes had touched for hundreds of years. There was treasure there, among the dross. It was in those places I searched for the Chandrian.

That’s because many of them had been secretaries—users of the equipment. These guys, maybe they punched a button on a copier one time in their lives, but they had someone else do their typing and their filing. So we were trying to sell to people who really had no concept of the work this equipment was actually accomplishing. “It didn’t register in my mind at that event, but that was the loudest and clearest signal we ever got of how much of a problem we were going to have getting Xerox to understand what we had.” There was at least one other harbinger of the coming letdown. Toward the end of the evening McColough, Kearns, and a few of the executive staff materialized in the demo room. Their appearance had been prearranged. “They were there to have an opportunity to say, ‘Well, now we’re going to do something, guys,’” Ellenby recalled. “But they didn’t take that opportunity. They just said, ‘Thank you.’ “I was expecting a bit more than that,” he said. “We’d developed a camaraderie that was quite unusual. My people felt pumped up and hyped, like a sporting team. Instead what we got was, ‘Thanks, boys, the war is over, and you can take your horses back.’” Thus did the doubts surface almost before the euphoria of a flawless demonstration had a chance to run its course. Despite McColough’s ringing re-endorsement of “the architecture of information,” his and Kearns’s equivocal farewell told Ellenby and his team that they were naïve to think Xerox would exploit this technology anytime soon. And in this beleaguered and distracted corporation, Ellenby knew, time was the enemy.

I'm so glad that I didn't quit,' I told them. 'If I had, I would never have known what it was to coach you. I've never seen better evidence of the resilience of the human spirit. I've never coached a team that has accomplished so much in one year - ever. It seemed that there was no way for you to reach the levels you aspired to. But from you I've understood even more what it means to persevere in the face of adversity. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.' Championship or no championship, this had been the most rewarding year I'd ever had coaching basketball. The last few months had been a fairy tale. We were the team that had been written off by the world as nothings. There wasn't a single person in America who would have bet ten cents that we'd be the team to go to Cleveland. No one in the world would have thought that we'd be the ones looking up and seeing 'AND THEN THERE WERE TWO' on that JumboTron—and that included me. But nobody knows better than me—a coal miner's daughter from Edenborn, Pennsylvania, a patch with no stop light—that it's not where you start but where you finish that counts. We might have started the season with a forty-point loss on our own floor, but we ended it by playing at the highest level, as one of the two best teams in the nation.

For some time in my life, I wondered if I’d ever know what it was like to be loved without reservation and to give that love in return. Now, I get to have both experiences because of you. Thank you, my love, for being my person. Thank you for loving me and the unique family we’ve created together. Marrying another creative person and finding ways to support our individual pursuits brings such richness to my life and creative experience. Thank you for listening to me read out phrases over and over again, assisting and correcting me on my Italian translations, and making me the best egg sandwiches a girl could ask for. We make a great team, and I look forward to celebrating all our successes and comforting each other through all our inevitable sorrows as we go through life together.

BOOKS THAT GREATLY INSPIRED ME AND THAT YOU SHOULD CONSIDER READING (in no particular order) Beyond the Culture of Contest by Michael Karlberg A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle Black Elk Speaks by John G. Neihardt The Family Virtues Guide by Linda Kavelin Popov, Dan Popov, and John Kavelin The Second Mountain by David Brooks High Conflict by Amanda Ripley The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Maté and Daniel Maté Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh The Seven Mysteries of Life by Guy Murchie Viral Justice by Ruha Benjamin The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible by Charles Eisenstein The Story of Our Time by Robert Atkinson Global Unitive Healing by Dr. Elena Mustakova What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck How Should We Live? by Roman Krznaric The God Equation by Michio Kaku Einstein’s God by Krista Tippett What We Talk About When We Talk About God by Rob Bell Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff Help, Thanks, Wow by Anne Lamott See No Stranger by Valarie Kaur Plays Well with Others by Eric Barker Narrow Road to the Interior by Matsuo Bashō The Soul’s Code by James Hillman The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss by David Bentley Hart The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton The Awakened Brain by Lisa Miller, PhD The Hidden Words by Baha’u’llah

Thank you for being on my team, Henry.” “Thank you for giving me the love I could never picture.

I find myself by the tunnel as the guys head for the locker room. I’ve just tucked away my cameras so I can grab some water when Jake and I make eye contact as he trots by. I’m so caught up in the excitement of the game, I run up to him and leap up into his arms to kiss him. “Great game! You’re killing it.” “Thanks, cupcake.” He laughs, kisses me again, before he pats my ass and rejoins the team. I touch my lips, which pull up in a huge smile. Life has never felt so good. Coming to Lone Star was the best decision I ever made. I’m busy thanking my lucky stars for Jake and our new school and all of the blessings we’ve had when I pause. Did someone just call my name? There it is again. It came from the stands. I grab my camera bag and look up, still smiling. Splash. That’s when I’m doused with a huge container of soda. I flinch as the cold liquid and ice hits my face and shoulders, but the debris keeps coming. More soda and some food. A hot dog with mustard and relish smacks my shirt and slowly slides to the ground. I gasp, afraid more crap will rain down on me. Someone must have tripped and accidentally dumped their food over the railing. When I look up, though, there are two girls in the stands, glaring down at me. I have a hard time making out their faces because they’re covered in face paint, but one yells, “Hey, skank! How does it feel to get Dakota’s sloppy seconds?” Horrified, I’m frozen stiff. I don’t see the soda can until it’s too late. 36 JAKE When we make it back onto the field, there’s a weird energy on the sidelines.

fighting through the darkness. You’ve pushed me to want more out of life and saw the potential in me that everyone else overlooked. SB’s Cleaning Service is what it is today because of you, and I’m so thankful for you, Love. Everyone needs a you on their team, but that’s too bad ’cause I’m keeping you all to myself.

Something sweet tickled my nose, and something soft lingered on my lips. My heart beat with an intensity I had never felt in my life. If this was what they called “honey trapping,” then suddenly I understood this world’s fascination with the stuff. I might have been over forty mentally, but physically I was in my twenties. I felt like I was going to explode. “Yes, well. You too.” I shot my head down in an awkward bow. “Thank you. For the kiss, I mean.” This was my downfall. There was an entire legion of knights present to witness my display, and my act would become the subject of laughter among them for days to come. Even the Valkyries would join in on the teasing. And my team would simply leave me to die.