Unsure Man Quotes

Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not.

The ones who are not soul-mated – the ones who have settled – are even more dismissive of my singleness: It’s not that hard to find someone to marry, they say. No relationship is perfect, they say – they, who make do with dutiful sex and gassy bedtime rituals, who settle for TV as conversation, who believe that husbandly capitulation – yes, honey, okay, honey – is the same as concord. He’s doing what you tell him to do because he doesn’t care enough to argue, I think. Your petty demands simply make him feel superior, or resentful, and someday he will fuck his pretty, young coworker who asks nothing of him, and you will actually be shocked. Give me a man with a little fight in him, a man who calls me on my bullshit. (But who also kind of likes my bullshit.) And yet: Don’t land me in one of those relationships where we’re always pecking at each other, disguising insults as jokes, rolling our eyes and ‘playfully’ scrapping in front of our friends, hoping to lure them to our side of an argument they could not care less about. Those awful if only relationships: This marriage would be great if only… and you sense the if only list is a lot longer than either of them realizes. So I know I am right not to settle, but it doesn’t make me feel better as my friends pair off and I stay home on Friday night with a bottle of wine and make myself an extravagant meal and tell myself, This is perfect, as if I’m the one dating me. As I go to endless rounds of parties and bar nights, perfumed and sprayed and hopeful, rotating myself around the room like some dubious dessert. I go on dates with men who are nice and good-looking and smart – perfect-on-paper men who make me feel like I’m in a foreign land, trying to explain myself, trying to make myself known. Because isn’t that the point of every relationship: to be known by someone else, to be understood? He gets me. She gets me. Isn’t that the simple magic phrase? So you suffer through the night with the perfect-on-paper man – the stutter of jokes misunderstood, the witty remarks lobbed and missed. Or maybe he understands that you’ve made a witty remark but, unsure of what to do with it, he holds it in his hand like some bit of conversational phlegm he will wipe away later. You spend another hour trying to find each other, to recognise each other, and you drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, That was fine. And your life is a long line of fine.

Will is… difficult,” Jem said. “But family is difficult. If I didn’t think the Institute was the best place for you, Tessa, I wouldn’t say it was. And one can build one’s own family. I know you feel inhuman, and as if you were set apart, away from life and love, but…” His voice cracked a little, the first time Tessa had heard him sound unsure. He cleared his throat. “I promise you, the right man won’t care.

We want to coalesce as sexual beings. And as spiritual beings, we want to coalesce with this universe, even if we are unsure of this being a possibility. However, one wrong move and you are stuck with someone who doesn’t help you grow intellectually or spiritually.

I know you feel inhuman, and as if you are set apart, away from life and love, but..." His voice cracked a little, the first time Tessa had heard him sound unsure. He cleared his throat. "I promise you, the right man won't care.

For a moment they still lived and I experienced their deaths as a fresh loss with each waking, so that I was unsure whether I was a man waking from a dream of death or a dreamer entering a world of loss, a man dreaming of unhappiness or a man waking to grief.

O Mistress mine, where are you roaming? O, stay and hear; your true love's coming, That can sing both high and low: Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man's son doth know. What is love? 'Tis not hereafter; Present mirth hath present laughter; What's to come is still unsure: In delay there lies not plenty; Then, come kiss me, sweet and twenty, Youth's a stuff will not endure.

A double-minded man is unsure in all his ways.

The Psychopath Free Pledge: 1. I will never beg or plead for someone else again. Any man or woman who brings me to that level is not worth my heart. 2. I will never tolerate criticisms about my body, age, weight, job, or any other insecurities I might have. Good partners won't put me down, they'll raise me up. 3. I will take a step back from my relationship once every month to make sure that I am being respected and loved, not flattered and love-bombed. 4. I will always ask myself the question: "Would I ever treat someone else like this?" If the answer is no, then I don't deserve to be treated like that either. 5. I will trust my gut. If I get a bad feeling, I won't try to push it away and make excuses. I will trust myself. 6. I understand that it is better to be single than in a toxic relationship. 7. I will not be spoken to in a condescending or sarcastic way. Loving partners will not patronize me. 8. I will not allow my partner to call me jealous, crazy, or any other form of projection. 9. My relationships will be mutual and equal at all times. Love is not about control and power. 10. If I ever feel unsure about any of these steps, I will seek out help from a friend, support forum, or therapist. I will not act on impulsive decisions.

You completely consume me, Ava. I can’t function without you. I’m totally addicted to you, baby.’ His voice is soft and unsure. My confident, domineering ex-playboy is nervous. ‘You own me…

Thyon could easily imagine Ruza as a little boy on a pony. He looked at him and saw the child he'd been, and he saw the man he was--warrior, prankster, friend--and he felt a warmth that he had never felt before for any other person. It was affection, and something that frightened him, too, that he could feel in his knees and fingertips and face. It made him unsure what to do with his hands. He noticed things like knuckles and eyelashes that he didn't notice on other people, and sometimes he had to look away and pretend to be thinking of something else.

Who was the real me? I can only repeat: I was a man of many faces. At meetings I was earnest, enthusiastic, and committed; among friends, unconstrained and given to teasing; with Marketa, cynical and fitfully witty; and alone (and thinking of Marketa), unsure of myself and as agitated as a schoolboy. Was the last face the real one? No. They were all real: I was not a hypocrite, with one real face and several false ones. I had several faces because I was young and didn’t know who I was or wanted to be. (I was frightened by the differences between one face and the next; none of them seemed to fit me properly, and I groped my way clumsily among them.)

I sit up straighter and puff out my chest a little bit, unsure why I'm doing so even as I do it. I know when I speak I'll have dropped my voice an octave to make myself seem more manly, and when I shake he hand, my grip will be tight and strong. Stupid, I know, but I'm a guy. It's what we do.

I was your man, you were halfway around the world from me, honey, I'd fuckin' phone you," he said quietly. "Niles is reserved," I whispered. "Niles is an ass," he returned and my brows drew together. "You don't know him." "I know men, and I know he's not reserved, he's an ass." I pulled my head together, my hand from his and snapped, "Yes? And how do you know that?" "Because I've seen you naked, I've seen you sweet, I've seen you unsure and I've seen you riled and, seein' all that, I know, you were half a world away from me, I'd fuckin' phone." "Perhaps that's not the kind of relationship Niles and I have," I suggested snottily, but his words hit me somewhere deep, somewhere I didn't know I had. "You on a timeout?" "What?" "If you told me you needed a timeout, first, I wouldn't fuckin' let you have one, second, I wouldn't give you reason to fuckin' want one, last, you took off anyway, I'd fuckin' phone.

One of the most difficult defilements of the spirit to deal with is the critical spirit. A critical spirit has its root in pride. Because of the 'plank' of pride in our own eye we are not capable of dealing with the 'speck' of need in someone else. We are often like the Pharisee who, completely unconscious of his own need prayed "God, I thank you that I am not like other men" (Luke 18:11). We are quick to see - and to speak of - the faults of others, but slow to see our own needs. How sweetly we relish the opportunity to speak critically of someone else - even when we are unsure of the facts. We forge that "a man who stirs up dissension among brothers" by criticizing one to another is one of the "six thing which the Lord hates" (Proverbs 6:16-19)

Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not. Your mother brings you into the world, carries you first in her body. What do we know about what she feels? But whatever she feels, it, at least, must be real. It must be. What are our ideas or ambitions? Play. Ideas! Why, that bloody bleating goat Temple has ideas. MacCann has ideas too. Every jackass going the roads thinks he has ideas.

For a young man has strong imagination but poor judgment, so that he imagines others to be as big as he is but considers himself to be very small. He has unbounded trust in the universe but is constantly unsure of himself.

GO BACK TO DALLAS!” the man sitting somewhere behind us yelled again, and the hold Aiden still had on the back of my neck tightened imperceptibly. “Don’t bother, Van,” he demanded, pokerfaced. “I’m not going to say anything,” I said, even as I reached up with the hand furthest away from him and put it behind my head, extending my middle finger in hopes that the idiot yelling would see it. Those brown eyes blinked. “You just flipped him off, didn’t you?” Yeah, my mouth dropped open. “How do you know when I do that?” My tone was just as astonished as it should be. “I know everything.” He said it like he really believed it. I groaned and cast him a long look. “You really want to play this game?” “I play games for a living, Van.” I couldn’t stand him sometimes. My eyes crossed in annoyance. “When is my birthday?” He stared at me. “See?” “March third, Muffin.” What in the hell? “See?” he mocked me. Who was this man and where was the Aiden I knew? “How old am I?” I kept going hesitantly. “Twenty-six.” “How do you know this?” I asked him slowly. “I pay attention,” The Wall of Winnipeg stated. I was starting to think he was right. Then, as if to really seal the deal I didn’t know was resting between us, he said, “You like waffles, root beer, and Dr. Pepper. You only drink light beer. You put cinnamon in your coffee. You eat too much cheese. Your left knee always aches. You have three sisters I hope I never meet and one brother. You were born in El Paso. You’re obsessed with your work. You start picking at the corner of your eye when you feel uncomfortable or fool around with your glasses. You can’t see things up close, and you’re terrified of the dark.” He raised those thick eyebrows. “Anything else?” Yeah, I only managed to say one word. “No.” How did he know all this stuff? How? Unsure of how I was feeling, I coughed and started to reach up to mess with my glasses before I realized what I was doing and snuck my hand under my thigh, ignoring the knowing look on Aiden’s dumb face. “I know a lot about you too. Don’t think you’re cool or special.” “I know, Van.” His thumb massaged me again for all of about three seconds. “You know more about me than anyone else does.” A sudden memory of the night in my bed where he’d admitted his fear as a kid pecked at my brain, relaxing me, making me smile. “I really do, don’t I?” The expression on his face was like he was torn between being okay with the idea and being completely against it. Leaning in close to him again, I winked. “I’m taking your love of MILF porn to the grave with me, don’t worry.” He stared at me, unblinking, unflinching. And then: “I’ll cut the power at the house when you’re in the shower,” he said so evenly, so crisply, it took me a second to realize he was threatening me… And when it finally did hit me, I burst out laughing, smacking his inner thigh without thinking twice about it. “Who does that?” Aiden Graves, husband of mine, said it, “Me.” Then the words were out of my mouth before I could control them. “And you know what I’ll do? I’ll go sneak into bed with you, so ha.” What the hell had I just said? What in the ever-loving hell had I just said? “If you think I’m supposed to be scared…” He leaned forward so our faces were only a couple of inches away. The hand on my neck and the finger pads lining the back of my ear stayed where they were. “I’m not

We are of the opinion that the strong man can afford to be gentle, while the weak and unsure brag and boast.

they’ve come here to dance, drawn sideways from their route home by the music and by bravado, and now they are hesitating, unsure of how to begin, unfamiliar with the steps, embarrassed.............they dance, and he smiles and nods and thinks of his wife sleeping at home, and thinks of when they were young and might still have done something like this………… but here, as the dawn sneaks up on the last day of summer, and as a man with tired hands watches a young couple dance in the carpark of his restaurant, there are only these: sparkling eyes, smudged lipstick, fading starlight, the crunching of feet on gravel, laughter, and a slow walk home……

Sometimes I wait at the bottom of those dark stairs, I sit at the bottom of the stairs, I wait beyond the bottom of the stairs and listen to the sounds my wife and children make as they sleep, the sounds our animals make as they step carefully through our dreams and out the other side to polished floor and cold window. Sometimes I wait so long I become unsure if I am asleep, or awake, or dead.

Even as he breathed his last breath he killed more Trojans. Terrified by the sight of a mortally wounded man with such implacable strength and will, most held back, unsure that such a man could really die.

If you are unsure about love, then look for a man who understands gentleness; who it passionate about honorable things; who will act swiftly to protect you, whether it be from the sword or even from little things—like cruel words and things that frighten you; who is patient and certain in his own strengths and abilities, and does not need to prove to any man or woman that he is better than they are.

The man afflicted by hunger for power or money for its own sake is just that: afflicted. He is tormented by incessant desires for more without cause. He is the most likely to wear a social mask to succeed, and thus he is always unsure of himself and his life, the deep tear inside always causing him to obsess about how to get more, why he doesn't have it already, and whom he will have to please or become in order to get it.

Women don't always want the right things in a man. And men don't have even an idea of what they want," she said. "Why, one minute their bodies tell them they want a wild woman that makes their blood rush. The next minute their good sense reminds them that they need a hard worker who is sturdy enough to help plow the field and birth the babies. They want a woman who'll mind their word and not be giving no jawing. But they also want a gal they can complain to when they are scared and unsure and who's smart enough to talk clear about the things goin' on." "So the wife has to be all those things?" "No, the wife is none of them," the old woman answered. "The wife is a wife and no further definition is necessary." Granny leaned forward in her chair to look more closely at Meggie. "Roe Farley married you and you were his wife. Nothing further even need to be said." Her face flushing with embarrassment, she glanced away. "But he doesn't... he didn't love me." "And did you think he would?" Momentarily Meggie was taken aback. "Well, yes." "Lord Almighty, child," Granny said. "Love ain't something that heaven hands out like good teeth or keen eyesight. Love is something two people make together." Shaking her head, the old woman leaned back in her chair once more and tapped on her pipe. "Love, oh, my, it starts out simple and scary with all that heavy breathing and in the bed sharing," she said. "You a-trembling when he runs his hands acrost your skin, him screaming out your name when he gets in the short rows. That's the easy part, Meggie. Every day thereafter it gets harder. The more you know him, the more he knows you, the longer you are a part of each other, the stronger the love is and the tougher it is to have it.

Because isn’t that the point of every relationship: to be known by someone else, to be understood? He gets me. She gets me. Isn’t that the simple magic phrase? So you suffer through the night with the perfect-on-paper man—the stutter of jokes misunderstood, the witty remarks lobbed and missed. Or maybe he understands that you’ve made a witty remark but, unsure of what to do with it, he holds it in his hand like some bit of conversational phlegm he will wipe away later. You spend another hour trying to find each other, to recognize each other, and you drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, That was fine. And your life is a long line of fine. And then you run into Nick Dunne on Seventh Avenue as you’re buying diced cantaloupe, and pow, you are known, you are recognized, the both of you. You both find the exact same things worth remembering. (Just one olive, though.) You have the same rhythm. Click. You just know each other. All of a sudden you see reading in bed and waffles on Sunday and laughing at nothing and his mouth on yours. And it’s so far beyond fine that you know you can never go back to fine. That fast. You think: Oh, here is the rest of my life. It’s finally arrived.

are incurably conceited and pathologically unsure of themselves; they respond to stroking the way a cat does.

Cassio is a ladies’ man, that is to say, a man who feels most at home in feminine company where his looks and good manners make him popular, but is ill at ease in the company of his own sex because he is unsure of his own masculinity. […] Cassio is a ladies’ man, not a seducer. With women of his own class, what he enjoys is socialized eroticism; he would be frightened of a serious personal passion. For physical sex he goes to prostitutes and when, unexpectedly, Bianca falls in love with him, like many of his kind, he behaves like a cad and brags of his conquest to others.

Sorry. You don’t think he’s hot?” She waited for my answer, but I was too busy choking. I just shook my head no. “That boy makes me want to turn into a jaguar.” “A what?” “A jaguar. You know, a woman who goes after younger men?” She wiggled her eyebrows. “You mean a cougar?” I laughed. “Yeah, yeah, that’s it. I knew it was one of those feline animals.” Shoving a cookie in her mouth, a devilish grin slowly crept across her face. “What?” I asked nervously, unsure I wanted to hear the answer. “I was just thinking about that sexy, young man and what he could do to this old pussy—cat.

I was also unsure that once a man has raised the mob (for there is really only one mob, waiting in potentia to be raised) whether anyone can keep it from the barbaric acts of violence it strains for.

As my mind dwells on the depths I have already sunk into since my arrival less than an hour ago, I approach Shaw’s feet and legs. Unsure of how to proceed, but sure that looking up at him is not an acceptable response, I wait on all fours in front of him, like an untrained animal. I squirm at the prospect that he may be making the same comparison. The hushed and excitable voices of the other men perforate the air around us as Shaw reaches down towards me. I see his left hand in my line of vision and one finger gently moves my face upwards to look at him. I gaze up at him and in this moment I want him more than I have ever wanted any man. I want him to seduce me. I want him to conquer me. I want to be devoured.

THOSE BORN UNDER Pacific Northwest skies are like daffodils: they can achieve beauty only after a long, cold sulk in the rain. Henry, our mother, and I were Pacific Northwest babies. At the first patter of raindrops on the roof, a comfortable melancholy settled over the house. The three of us spent dark, wet days wrapped in old quilts, sitting and sighing at the watery sky. Viviane, with her acute gift for smell, could close her eyes and know the season just by the smell of the rain. Summer rain smelled like newly clipped grass, like mouths stained red with berry juice — blueberries, raspberries, blackberries. It smelled like late nights spent pointing constellations out from their starry guises, freshly washed laundry drying outside on the line, like barbecues and stolen kisses in a 1932 Ford Coupe. The first of the many autumn rains smelled smoky, like a doused campsite fire, as if the ground itself had been aflame during those hot summer months. It smelled like burnt piles of collected leaves, the cough of a newly revived chimney, roasted chestnuts, the scent of a man’s hands after hours spent in a woodshop. Fall rain was not Viviane’s favorite. Rain in the winter smelled simply like ice, the cold air burning the tips of ears, cheeks, and eyelashes. Winter rain was for hiding in quilts and blankets, for tying woolen scarves around noses and mouths — the moisture of rasping breaths stinging chapped lips. The first bout of warm spring rain caused normally respectable women to pull off their stockings and run through muddy puddles alongside their children. Viviane was convinced it was due to the way the rain smelled: like the earth, tulip bulbs, and dahlia roots. It smelled like the mud along a riverbed, like if she opened her mouth wide enough, she could taste the minerals in the air. Viviane could feel the heat of the rain against her fingers when she pressed her hand to the ground after a storm. But in 1959, the year Henry and I turned fifteen, those warm spring rains never arrived. March came and went without a single drop falling from the sky. The air that month smelled dry and flat. Viviane would wake up in the morning unsure of where she was or what she should be doing. Did the wash need to be hung on the line? Was there firewood to be brought in from the woodshed and stacked on the back porch? Even nature seemed confused. When the rains didn’t appear, the daffodil bulbs dried to dust in their beds of mulch and soil. The trees remained leafless, and the squirrels, without acorns to feed on and with nests to build, ran in confused circles below the bare limbs. The only person who seemed unfazed by the disappearance of the rain was my grandmother. Emilienne was not a Pacific Northwest baby nor a daffodil. Emilienne was more like a petunia. She needed the water but could do without the puddles and wet feet. She didn’t have any desire to ponder the gray skies. She found all the rain to be a bit of an inconvenience, to be honest.

How sweetly we relish the opportunity to speak critically of someone else—even when we are unsure of our facts. We forget that “a man who stirs up dissension among brothers” by criticizing one to another is one of the “six things which the Lord hates” (Proverbs 6:16-19).

Many men are fascinated by the consciously evolving female who makes them feel free inside. But they're too unsure of their own standing to actually stay with such women. They want a sheepish, sort-of-dumb woman at home for them, then they imagine themselves being swept off their feet by a goddess somewhere outside. These are the kinds of men that aren't worth being with. You want to have a man who can sail a ship just as well as you can, a man who puts both his feet in the same boat at the same time, someone whose manhood is never defined by female docility.

Not in the slightest,” Horace said. He was grinning now but he did remember that there was a time when he had been distinctly unsure of himself in the presence of Rangers—first with Gilan and Will in Celtica, then later in company with Halt as they crossed Gallica. Odd to think that now they were his closest friends. “I’ve learned since then. Halt’s really a pussycat,” he added. Will and Gilan both snorted in an unsuccessful attempt to conceal their laughter. Halt’s eyebrow rose fractionally as he regarded the grinning young man. “A pussycat,” he repeated. Svengal had been watching this exchange with interest. Now he joined in with a loud guffaw. “More like a battered old tomcat, I’d have thought,” he said. Halt’s withering gaze swung to the big Skandian, who remained resolutely unwithered. “Everyone’s a comedian all of a sudden,” Halt said. “I think I’ll go to bed.” He exited the room with what little dignity remained to him.

I am a very ill man if you see mutation as my doctors do. But if you perceive mutation in another way, as a transformation, you might see a dramatic form with many possibilities. I am unsure of many things, but I am sure of this: I want to spend my last months as a human being with you, making theater about human beings, for human beings.

Next morning at church the pastor said our beautiful visitor {the Great Comet of 1965} meant war was coming (...). At twelve I was unsure what to make of his sweltering interpretation but noticed a strain of quiet annoyance in my stepmom's demeanor driving home. When I asked about the promised war and how we ought to get ready, she pulled the car over and looked in my eyes. Her kindness has like water over smooth stones. She said Pastor Leake was a decent man who often mistook his worldview for the world, a common churchman's error. She said the church was a broken compass. That our job always and forever was to refuse Apocalypse in all its forms and work cheerfully against it.

What I’d like to explain is that I don’t think Julie in her heart of hearts is all that acquisitive either. She’s just unhappy and frustrated and she hasn’t yet discovered how to “be” in the world. Unsure what to desire, she simply wants. Or this is the conclusion I’ve come to. A father’s too generous theory, perhaps. Applied evenly, it might be a rationale for acquisitiveness in general,

Because he did have that gift, truly he did, he was the Man of a Thousand Voices and a Voice. If you wanted to know how your ketchup bottle should talk in its television commercial, if you were unsure as to the ideal voice for your packet of garlic-flavoured crisps, he was your very man. He made carpets speak in warehouse advertisements, he did celebrity impersonations, baked beans, frozen peas.

Zach: Are you close with your brother? He’s partially to blame for the wrong number thing, isn’t he? * * * Me: Kind of. Yeah, we’re close. My mom worked at the hospital so it was usually just us two fending for ourselves. * * * Me: Okay, so I shouldn’t say fending for ourselves. That makes me sound like a dick and unappreciative of all my mom did. We just spent many nights just the two of us because my mom was a hardworking single lady and she wasn’t searching for a man to put a ring on it because she. Is. Fierce. * * * Zach: I bet your mom is the shit. * * * Me: She really is. You should meet her sometime. * * * Me: Oh, awkward…I’m talking about meeting the family and we’re not even officially a couple. * * * Zach: We’re not? * * * Me: We are? My phone lights up with a call from Zach. “Are you saying we aren’t dating?” he says before I can say anything. “We are…” “Are you saying you’re wanting to see other people?” “No…” “So then we’re a couple.” I’m quiet, unsure what to say. I’m so scared to label this, which is stupid, I know. “Delia?” “Yes, Zach?” “Do you not want to be?” I take a deep breath and push out the answer I know is right, even though my head is saying otherwise. “No. I want to be a couple.” “Are you sure?” “Yes. I’m just…scared. I know I shouldn’t put that all on you, but you’re kind of the reason I’m scared. I like you, Zach—a lot—but what if this doesn’t work out? What if we jump in too soon?” He sighs. “Remember when we were talking about our exes? About the lack of fireworks?” “Yeah.” “I swear to god, someone is going to swoop in and take my man card for this shit, but I felt them with you. When we first kissed, I knew right then you were worth jumping in with both feet and taking a risk.” I don’t let myself overthink his words, wanting to keep my head level and clear. “What if I’m not worth the risk?” “We’ll never know if we don’t take it.” “Say you’re a couple already, Dalilah!” Robbie’s voice comes loud through the speaker. “He paused the movie during an epic scene!” “How many times have I told you that her name is Delia. Deal-ya. Get it?” “You talk about me with Robbie?” I ask. “Sometimes.” “Say yes! He looks like someone kicked his goat!” “Shut the fuck up, Robbie!” I laugh. “If I say yes, will he stop shouting?” “YES!” Robbie shouts again. “I’ll take the risk, Zach, but you better be worth it.” “You’ve seen my Harry Potter underwear—you know I’m worth it.” Then he whispers, “Wink.

As tears become rivers emptying into a sea of pain, there you'll find my heart, smashed into a thousand pieces littered in the rain. Amongst the shadows is where you'll see a glimpse of the woman I used to be. I used to believe in the good of everything, everyone; an optimist...nothing could cloud my day; my world I met him on a sunny June day and knew he was heaven sent the sun shined brighter, the world was happier; here standing in front of me was the one I'd waited my whole life for Him, my destroyer, the man that cracked my universe and taught me things and people weren't always what they seemed and no matter how I tried, there was no longer a sun in sight to see I trusted him, gave my heart to him; he used me; did he ever love me? Does he know what love means? Loyalty?  Please! He has none, except to himself... I lost myself in him and his world; who am I? I'm not sure They call me Ananda, I call me damaged I'm not who I used to be and unsure of who I'm supposed to be and there is the problem... I'm a broken reflection of someone I used to know and can never be again am I better or worse after him? My heart is definitely worse, but my spirit--the one thing he couldn't touch is unbroken my spirit survived his wrath and in due time so will I....

I did it because I stood a better chance of surviving with them than without them. Not because I have any personal affinity for either one. I think your brother-in-law is a dolt personally, and BT was just your husband’s lackey. Without Mike directing him, he is as unsure of himself as an eighteen-year-old virgin with a hooker. Now Michael I miss, that was a man that could get out of a jam, smart enough to know what to do and dumb enough to do it himself.

One afternoon, Sam, the onion man, and his donkey, Mary Lou, were returning to his boat, which was anchored just a little off shore. It was late in November and the peach trees had lost most of their leaves. “Sam!” someone called. He turned around to see three men running after him, waving their hats. He waited. “Afternoon, Walter. Bo, Jesse,” he greeted them, as they walked up, catching their breath. “Glad we caught you,” said Bo. “We’re going rattlesnake hunting in the morning.” “We want to get some of your lizard juice,” said Walter. “I ain’t a-scared of no rattlesnake,” said Jesse. “But I don’t want to come across one of those red-eyed monsters. I seen one once, and that was enough. I knew about the red eyes, of course. I hadn’t heard about the big black teeth.” “It’s the white tongues that get me,” said Bo. Sam gave each man two bottles of pure onion juice. He told them to drink one bottle before going to bed that night, then a half bottle in the morning, and then a half bottle around lunchtime. “You sure this stuff works?” asked Walter. “I tell you what,” said Sam. “If it doesn’t, you can come back next week and I’ll give you your money back.” Walter looked around unsure, as Bo and Jesse laughed. Then Sam laughed, too. Even Mary Lou let out a rare hee-haw. “Just remember,” Sam told the men before they left. “It’s very important you drink a bottle tonight. You got to get it into your bloodstream. The lizards don’t like onion blood.

Tears were running down her cheeks but a smile trembled on her lips. 'We will still die together." With a shaking hand, she reached for the teapot. 'Will you have a last cup of tea with me?' He turned his gaze on her. An odd calmness was welling up in him. 'I would rather have a kiss. My first and last, I think.' 'Your first kiss?' He laughed shakily. 'My circumstances have not lent themselves to the giving or receiving of kisses.' She blinked and the tears spilled faster. 'For me, also.' She leaned a little closer to him and then stopped. He looked at her. She had closed her eyes. Her hair was sleek, her skin like cream, her lips pink. Her first kiss would come from a scaled dragon-man. He leaned in and found her mouth with his. He kissed her softly, unsure of how it was done, expecting her to pull away in revulsion. Instead, when he leaned back, she was smiling through her tears. 'To be touched by a man, with gentleness,' she said, as if that wonder were so great, it dispelled the circling dragons.

And I don’t know what it is about this in particular, but I just burst out laughing. At first unsure, Ed finally grins. And then he throws his arms around me, pressing his face to my shoulder. “I missed you so much. I’ve felt like complete shit. I’m so, so sorry, man.

But knowing the difficulties didn't make Tuesday's lack of focus easier for me. When Tuesday was distracted, I felt unsure. In the years ahead, I learned to read his reactions. I knew when his mind was wandering, when he was merely interested in something (Squirrel! Urine-smelling tree!), and when he was alert to possible danger. Knowing Tuesday's mood calmed my mind, because I could trust his vigilance. Today, I can walk down the street distracted and carefree because I have faith Tuesday will alert me to danger. In those early months, before I'd learn to trust his instincts, Tuesday's greatest contribution was his presence. He was my point man, walking slightly ahead of me, symbolically leading the way. He was a buffer against the world, but also a diversion. If they were going to look at me, most people looked at Tuesday first, and that was a relief.

Once I saw torches with dancing flames of scarlet and radiant gold held by solemn apes. A man with the horns and muzzled face of a bull bent over me, a constellation sprung to life. I spoke to him and found myself telling him that I was unsure of the precise date of my birth, that if his benign spirit of meadow and unfeigning force had governed my life I thanked him for it; then remembered that I knew the date, that my father had given a ball for me each year until his death, that it fell under the Swan. He listened intently, turning his head to watch me from one brown eye.

If you follow these simple points, you will find permanent freedom from toxic bonds:   I will never beg or plead for someone else again. Any man or woman who brings me to that level is not worth my heart. I will never tolerate criticisms about my body, age, weight, job, or any other insecurities I might have. Good partners won’t put me down, they’ll raise me up. I will take a step back from my relationship once every month to make sure that I am being respected and loved, not flattered and love-bombed. I will always ask myself the question: “Would I ever treat someone else like this?” If the answer is no, then I don’t deserve to be treated like that either. I will trust my gut. If I get a bad feeling, I won’t try to push it away and make excuses. I will trust myself. I understand that it is better to be single than in a toxic relationship. I will not be spoken to in a condescending or sarcastic way. Loving partners will not patronize me. I will not allow my partner to call me jealous, crazy, or any other form of projection. My relationships will be mutual and equal at all times. Love is not about control and power. If I ever feel unsure about any of these steps, I will seek out help from a friend, support forum, or therapist. I will not act on impulsive decisions.

something in. I wonder what the heck he’s doing. It was almost like he was waiting for me. I don't say anything, not wanting to be rude. Maybe he lives in the building. He’s not a tall man, maybe five-eleven, which doesn’t seem so big after having Mason in my space. Mason’s more than a few inches over six foot. But what this man doesn’t have in height, he has in muscles. He looks like someone who used to wrestle, I think absently. His gray hair streaks over his once-solid black hair. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s in his early fifties. The elevator dings, and he follows me on, hitting the button for both of us. When I step out, he follows me out the building and down the street. I start walking faster, unsure what the heck is going on. “Miss Myers.” When he says my name, I stop and turn, and he almost runs into me. “I’m your security. No need to be scared of me.” “Security?” “Seems you like to wander. I’m here to make sure you don’t wander into trouble.” “I don’t wander,” I fire back. He raises his eyebrows and smiles. “Just doing my job, ma’am.” His easy smile forces me to release the tension in my shoulders. Sometimes things would get a little scary when I walked home to my old apartment. It wasn’t in the nicest neighborhood. Heck, sometimes I didn’t even feel safe in my apartment.

I go on dates with men who are nice and good-looking and smart – perfect-on-paper men who make me feel like I’m in a foreign land, trying to explain myself, trying to make myself known. Because isn’t that the point of every relationship: to be known by someone else, to be understood? He gets me. She gets me. Isn’t that the simple magic phrase? So you suffer through the night with the perfect-on-paper man – the stutter of jokes misunderstood, the witty remarks lobbed and missed. Or maybe he understands that you’ve made a witty remark but, unsure of what to do with it, he holds it in his hand like some bit of conversational phlegm he will wipe away later.

Love. This is love. It’s being bewitched by the curve of her lips and the way the light makes her eyes glitter. It’s enjoying her vulnerability because only Callie could spend a hundred nights with me and still be unsure about my feelings for her. It’s wanting to buy her a cup of coffee and some macaroons just to see her smile, or making her homework dance around her desk so I can hear her laugh. It’s all those nights I fled her room because I was afraid of her seeing me just as she has every other man in her life. It’s holding her close when she cries because her pain is my own and the world won’t be right until it’s gone. And it’s being absolutely certain that things cannot go on like this for another year.

He didn't think that his friend would kill the man, but he realized with more than a little nervousness that he didn't absolutely know that he wouldn't, either. Probably he was just trying to frighten the stranger. Diomedes had once told him the importance of maintaining a powerful image in this sort of situation, but the man didn't seem frightened so much as—like Michael—unsure.

The older a woman got, the more diligent she had to become about not burdening men with the gory details of her past, lest she scare them off. That was the name of the game: Don’t Scare the Men. Those who encouraged you to indulge in your impulse to share, largely did so to expedite a bus. Like I felt the wind of the bus. I could even see a couple of the passengers, all shaken by a potential suicide. And out of nowhere, the guy rushes over, yanks me toward him, and escorts me out of the street.” “The birthday boy?” “No, different guy. You all start to look the same after a while, you know that? Anyway, we were both so high on adrenaline, we couldn’t stop laughing the whole night. Then he asked me out. Now one of our jokes is about that time I flung myself into traffic to avoid him.” “You were in shock.” “No, I wasn’t.” “Why isn’t the joke that he saved your life?” “I don’t know, Amos,” I said, folding my fingers together. “Maybe we’re both waiting for the day I turn around and say, ‘That’s right, asshole, I did fling myself into traffic to avoid you.’ I’m joking.” “Are you?” “Am I?” I mimicked him. “Should the day come when you manage to face-plant yourself into a relationship, you’ll find there are certain fragile truths every couple has. Sometimes I’m uncomfortable with the power, knowing I could break us up if I wanted. Other times, I want to blow it up just because it’s there. But then the feeling passes.” “That’s bleak.” “To you, it is. But I’m not like you. I don’t need to escape every room I’m in.” “But you are like me. You think you want monogamy, but you probably don’t if you dated me.” “You’re faulting me for liking you now?” “All I’m saying is you can’t just will yourself into being satisfied with this guy.” “Watch me,” I said, trying to burn a hole in his face. “If it were me, the party would have been our first date and it never would have ended.” “Oh, yes it would have,” I said, laughing. “The date would have lasted one week, but the whole relationship would have lasted one month.” “Yeah,” he said, “you’re right.” “I know I’m right.” “It wouldn’t have lasted.” “This is what I’m saying.” “Because if I were this dude, I would have left you by now.” Before I could say anything, Amos excused himself to pee. On the bathroom door was a black and gold sticker in the shape of a man. I felt a rage rise up all the way to my eyeballs, thinking of how naturally Amos associated himself with that sticker, thinking of him aligning himself with every powerful, brilliant, thoughtful man who has gone through that door as well as every stupid, entitled, and cruel one, effortlessly merging with a class of people for whom the world was built. I took my phone out, opening the virtual cuckoo clocks, trying to be somewhere else. I was confronted with a slideshow of a female friend’s dead houseplants, meant to symbolize inadequacy within reason. Amos didn’t have a clue what it was like to be a woman in New York, unsure if she’s with the right person. Even if I did want to up and leave Boots, dating was not a taste I’d acquired. The older a woman got, the more diligent she had to become about not burdening men with the gory details of her past, lest she scare them off. That was the name of the game: Don’t Scare the Men. Those who encouraged you to indulge in your impulse to share, largely did so to expedite a decision. They knew they were on trial too, but our courtrooms had more lenient judges.

He spent the morning at the beach. He had no idea which one, just some open stretch of coastline reaching out to the sea. An unbroken mantle of soft grey clouds was sitting low over the water. Only on the horizon was there a glimmer of light, a faint blue band of promise. The beach was deserted, not another soul on the vast, wide expanse of sand that stretched out in front of him. Having come from the city, it never ceased to amaze Jejeune that you could be that alone in the world. He walked along the beach, feeling the satisfying softness as the sand gave way beneath his slow deliberate strides. He ventured as close to the tide line as he dared, the white noise of the waves breaking on the shingles. A set of paw prints ran along the sand, with an unbroken line in between. A small dog, dragging a stick in its mouth. Always the detective, even if, these days, he wasn’t a very good one. Jejeune’s path became blocked by a narrow tidal creek carrying its silty cargo out to the sea. On each side of it were shallow lagoons and rock pools. When the tide washed in they would teem with new life, but at the moment they looked barren and empty. Jejeune looked inland, back to where the dark smudge of Corsican pines marked the edge of the coast road. He traced the creek’s sinuous course back to where it emerged from a tidal salt flat, and watched the water for a long time as it eddied and churned, meeting the incoming tide in an erotic swirl of water, the fresh intermingling with the salty in a turbulent, roiling dance, until it was no longer possible to tell one from the other. He looked out at the sea, at the motion, the color, the light. A Black-headed Gull swooped in and settled on a piece of driftwood a few feet away. Picture complete, thought Jejeune. For him, a landscape by itself, no matter how beautiful, seemed an empty thing. It needed a flicker of life, a tiny quiver of existence, to validate it, to confirm that other living things found a home here, too. Side by side, they looked out over the sea, the man and the bird, two beating hearts in this otherwise empty landscape, with no connection beyond their desire to be here, at this time. Was it the birds that attracted him to places like this, he wondered, or the solitude, the absence of demands, of expectations? But if Jejeune was unsure of his own motives, he knew this bird would have a purpose in being here. Nature always had her reasons. He chanced a sidelong glance at the bird, now settled to his presence. It had already completed its summer molt, crisp clean feathers having replaced the ones abraded by the harsh demands of eking out a living on this wild, windswept coastline. The gull stayed for a long moment, allowing Jejeune to rest his eyes softly, unthreateningly, upon it. And then, as if deciding it had allowed him enough time to appreciate its beauty, the bird spread its wings and effortlessly lifted off, wheeling on the invisible air currents, drifting away over the sea toward the horizon. p. 282-3

Because that was a parent’s job: to provide shoulders. Shoulders for your children to sit on when they’re little so they can see the world, then stand on when they get older so they can reach the clouds, and sometimes lean against whenever they stumble and feel unsure. They trust us, which is a crushing responsibility, because they haven’t yet realized that we don’t actually know what we’re doing. So the man did what we all do: he pretended he knew. When his children started to ask why poo was brown, and what happens after you die, and why polar bears don’t eat penguins. Then they got older. Sometimes he managed to forget that for a moment and found himself reaching to hold their hands. They were so embarrassed. Him too. It’s hard to explain to a twelve-year-old that when you were little and I walked too fast, you would run to catch up with me and take hold of my hand, and that those were the best moments of my life. Your fingertips in the palm of my hand. Before you knew how many things I’d failed at.

When I finally walked out into the bedroom, primped as I could hope to be at six in the morning, Marlboro Man was standing near my bed, holding the two collages in his hands and looking them over. “Oh, you’re in big trouble,” he said, holding up the collage I’d made on his behalf. “In trouble?” I smiled. “With you or Father Johnson?” “Both,” he said, lunging at me and tackling me onto the bed. “You were not supposed to do that.” I laughed and tried to wriggle loose. He tickled my ribs. I screamed. Three seconds later, when he felt I’d been adequately punished, we sat up and propped our heads against the pillows of my bed. “You did not do my homework assignment for me,” he said, grabbing the collage again and looking it over. “I had insomnia,” I said. “I needed a creative activity.” Marlboro Man looked at me, seemingly unsure of whether to kiss me, thank me…or just tickle me some more. I didn’t give him a chance. Instead I picked up the collage and took Marlboro Man on a tour so he’d be prepared for our appointment.

Two men enter the room, one old and mustached and the other young and tawny-headed, wearing sweats and a worn T-shirt. He looks like Silas, actually—god, what am I, obsessed? But there really is something of the woodsman in the younger man’s face, with his full lips, his slightly curled hair that turns like tendrils around his ears . . . I look away before studying him too closely. “All right, ladies, are we ready?” the older man says enthusiastically. There’s a loud rustling of paper as well flip the enormous sketchbooks on our easels until we find blank sheets. I draw a few soft lines on my page, unsure what— Non-Silas rips off his T-shirt, revealing lightly defined muscles on his pale chest. I raise an eyebrow just as he tugs at the waist of the sweatpants. They drop to the floor in a fluid, sweeping motion. There’s nothing underneath them. At all. My charcoal slips through my suddenly sweaty fingers. Non-Silas steps out of the puddle of his clothes and moves to the center of the room, fluorescent lights reflecting off his slick abdomen. He’s smiling as though he isn’t naked, smiling as though I didn’t somehow manage to get the seat closest to him. As if I can’t see . . . um . . . everything only a few feet from my face, making my mind clumsily spiral. I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment; he looks like Silas in the face, and because of that I keep wondering if he looks akin to Silas everywhere else. “All right, ladies, this will be a seven-minute pose. Ready?” the older man says, positioning himself behind the other empty easel. The roomful of housewives nod in one hungry motion. I quiver. “Go!” the older man says, starting the stopwatch. Non-Silas poses, something reminiscent of Michelangelo’s David, only instead of marble eyes looking into nothingness, non-Silas is staring almost straight at me. Draw. I’m supposed to be drawing. I grab a new piece of charcoal from the bottom of the easel and begin hastily making lines in my sketchbook. I can’t not look at him, or he’ll think I’m not drawing him. I glance hurriedly, trying to avoid the region my eyes continuously return to. I start to feel fluttery. How long has it been? Surely it’s been seven minutes. I try to add some tone to my drawing’s chest. I wonder what Silas’s chest looks like . . . Stop! Stop stop stop stop stop—” “Right, then!” the older man says as his stopwatch beeps loudly and the scratchy sound of charcoal on paper ends. Thank you, sir, thank you—” “Annnnd next pose!” Non-Silas turns his head away, till all I can see is his wren-colored hair and his side, including a side view of . . . how many times am I going to have to draw this man’s area? What’s worse is that he looks even more like Silas now that I can’t see his eyes. Just like Silas, I bet. My eyes linger longer than necessary now that non-Silas isn’t staring straight at me. By the end of class, I’ve drawn eight mediocre pictures of him, each one with a large white void in the crotch area. The housewives compare drawings with ravenous looks in their eyes as non-Silas tugs his pants back on and leaves the room, nodding politely. I picture him naked again. I sprint from the class, abandoning my sketches—how could I explain them to Scarlett or Silas? Stop thinking of Silas, stop thinking of Silas.

And yet. For that was the peculiar thing, Lady Darvish thought, clicking through to browse the seller’s other listings while she waited for the auction to elapse: ever since the knighthood – no, further back; ever since they’d met Lemoine – Sir Owen had talked incessantly about ‘deserving’, and it seemed to her that the more he’d dwelled upon the subject, the more his sense of satisfaction in his life had ebbed away. Now he was almost like a different person. Gone was the creature of habit, the man of confident complacency and firm, well-trodden ground; in his place was someone oddly younger, someone who was eager, and reckless, and unsettled, and unsure.

It didn’t matter how stupid I was--how dumb, or awkward, or sweaty. It became clearer to me than ever, sitting on that ornate concrete bench, that Marlboro Man loved me. Really, really loved me. He loved me with a kind of love different from any I’d felt before, a kind of love I never knew existed. Other boys--at least, the boys I’d always bothered with--would have been embarrassed that I’d disappeared into the bathroom for half the night. Others would have been grossed out by my tale of sweaty woe or made jokes at my expense. Others might have looked at me blankly, unsure of what to say. But not Marlboro Man; none of it fazed him one bit. He simply laughed, kissed me, and went on. And my heart welled up in my soul as I realized that without question, I’d found the one perfect person for me. Because more often than not, I was a mess. Embarrassing, clumsy things happened to me with some degree of regularity; this hadn’t been the first time and it sure wouldn’t be the last. The truth was, despite my best efforts to appear normal and put together on the outside, I’d always felt more like one of the weird kids. But at last, miraculously, I’d found the one man on earth who would actually love that about me. I’d found the one man on earth who would appreciate my spots of imperfection…and who wouldn’t try to polish them all away.

You did not do my homework assignment for me,” he said, grabbing the collage again and looking it over. “I had insomnia,” I said. “I needed a creative activity.” Marlboro Man looked at me, seemingly unsure of whether to kiss me, thank me…or just tickle me some more. I didn’t give him a chance. Instead I picked up the collage and took Marlboro Man on a tour so he’d be prepared for our appointment. “Here’s a pack of cigarettes,” I said. “Because I used to smoke in college.” “Uh-huh,” he answered. “I knew that.” “And here’s a glass of white wine,” I continued. “Because…I love white wine.” “Yes, I’ve noticed,” Marlboro Man answered. “But…won’t Father Johnson have a problem with that being on there?” “Nah…,” I said. “He’s Episcopalian.” “Got it,” he said. I continued with my collage orientation, pointing out the swatch of my favorite shade of turquoise…the pug…the ballet shoe…the Hershey’s Kiss. He watched and listened intently, prepping himself for Father Johnson’s upcoming grilling. Gradually the earliness of the morning and the cozy warmth of my bedroom got the better of us, and before we knew it we’d sunk into the irresistible softness of my bed, our arms and legs caught in a tangled maze. “I think I love you,” his raspy voice whispered, his lips nearly touching my ear. His arms wrapped even more tightly around my body, swallowing me almost completely.

It doesn’t matter what happened. I am here to make things right. I want to marry your sister.” Stoneville eyed him closely. “Minerva seemed to think otherwise.” Jackson sighed. “I’m not surprised. I believe that I also left Lady Celia unsure of my intentions. I…um…made rather a hash of it when I proposed the first time.” The marquess chuckled. “I’ll say.” Jackson cast him a startled glance. “Yes, I heard all about your offer. Do forgive my amusement. If you’ll recall, I made rather a hash of my own marriage proposal.” He sobered. “I also understand that my grandmother had something to do with your reticence to offer marriage.” “I was not reticent,” Jackson said fiercely. “I was never reticent about that. I’ve wanted to marry your sister almost from the moment I met her. And no matter what your grandmother thinks, it has nothing to do with her fortune or her position or-“ “I know.” When Jackson blinked, the marquess smiled. “You forget-I’ve watched you work for nearly a year. I’ve listened to your opinions and heard of your fine reputation. I know a man of good character when I see one.” “Even if he’s a bastard?” Jackson bit out. “The Duke of Clarence has ten bastards and everyone turns a blind eye, so I don’t see why we can’t have at least one on the family. Or two, if you count Jarret’s stepson.” Stoneville smiled. “We Sharpes are hellions after all. We wouldn’t want to become boring. What would the gossips have to talk about?

So I know I am right not to settle, but it doesn't make me feel better as my friends pair off and I stay home on Friday night with a bottle of wine and make myself an extravagant meal and tell myself, This is perfect, as if I'm the one dating me. As I go to endless rounds of parties and bar nights, perfumed and sprayed and hopeful, rotating myself around the room like some dubious dessert. I go on dates with men who are nice and good-looking and smart - perfect-on-paper men who make me feel like I'm in a foreign land, trying to explain myself, trying to make myself known. Because isn't that the point of every relationship: to be known by someone else, to be understood? He gets me. She gets me. Isn't that the simple magic phrase? So you suffer through the night with the perfect-on-paper man - the stutter of jokes misunderstood, the witty remarks lobbed and missed. Or maybe he understands that you've made a witty remark but, unsure of what to do with it, he holds it in his hand like some bit of conversational phlegm he will wipe away later. You spend another hour trying to find each other, to recognise each other, and you drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, That was fine. And your life is a long line of fine. And then you run into Nick Dunne on Seventh Avenue as you're buying diced cantaloupe, and pow, you are known, you are recognised, the both of you. You both find the exact same things worth remembering. (Just one olive, though). You have the same rhythm. Click. You just know each other. All of a sudden you see reading in bed and waffles on Sunday and laughing at nothing and his mouth on yours. And it's so far beyond fine that you know you can never go back to fine. That fast. You think: Oh, here is the rest of my life. It's finally arrived.

Ell's Double Down --- "The haze across the room conceals the faces of the patrons and gives the setting a secretive draping. Her heart is pounding and although she has done this for months now, she still becomes nervous starting out. She glances across the table, the man facing her is attractive he is dressed in a fine suit his eyes a warm brown, his stare deliberate. When he looks at her she can tell, it’s a look you don’t give a kid sister, his look is heated. She can hardly breathe when she looks into his eyes it is disarming, she can’t have this. She looks above him to her friend Sophie; she is unsure of herself and silently communicates her discomfort to her friend. Sophie gives her a smile then leans down whispering into the man’s ear his attention is suddenly diverted giving Ell the opportunity to settle in. She exhales feeling better now that the man is distracted. Later she will help Sophie untangle herself from him but now she has to focus on the business at hand. She takes a deep breath, flashing a dazzling smile at the rest of the men gathered around the table and antes up. The truth is gambling makes her feel empowered the rush was like none other. Each hand dealt promised her a solution to her problems. Logically that alone could be the cause for her increased heart rate and butterflies but Ell knew better. She liked the mind games played as each of them attempted to psyche out opponents seated around the table. Ell herself suffered through painful lessons until she honed her own skills. Eventually Sophie taught her the most valuable ploy --using her womanly wiles as her weapon. Ell initially felt foolish but the first time she glanced through mascaraed lashes and saw the effect she turned to her friend for additional suggestions. This combined with her ability to gauge the cards each player held or what now laid in the muck. However to be honest, she simply loved soundly beating the table full of men.

There was a man in the garden with the little girl. He was turning over the soil in a garden bed. He had obviously heard the car, because he raised his hand in greeting, but then he had gone back to his work. He had actually turned his back on the car. Tina thought she knew what that meant. The man had not wanted to see Pete the policeman. Maybe he thought Pete was bringing bad news. Tina smiled. Here was good news. Finally, here was good news for this family. The man dug the garden fork into the soil with a little bit of effort. He was deliberately not looking at Pete. The little girl walked down the driveway towards them. Pete said quietly, ‘No real way to prepare them. You go ahead, Lockie.’ Lockie squeezed Tina’s hand. ‘Go on, Lockie, it’s your dad. He’s been looking for you for a long time. Go on.’ She pulled her hand slowly out of Lockie’s grip. She wanted to save him from his fear, but she had saved him once. Lockie would have to do this by himself. The little girl who was surely Sammy looked back at her father, but he was still concentrating on his work. She smiled in Pete’s direction and then she focused on Lockie. She stared at him, as if trying to work out exactly who he was. Lockie pushed his hood back, exposing his short blond hair. He stood, and Tina could sense him holding his breath, waiting for his sister to see him. To really see him. Sammy stared hard at Lockie now, frowning. And then Tina saw recognition light up her face. She looked at her father who had still not looked up. She looked back at Lockie. She started jumping up and down. ‘Lockie!’ she screamed. ‘Lockie, Lockie, Lockie!’ Lockie smiled.The man jerked upright and dropped the garden fork. ‘Stop that, Samantha,’ he whispered angrily. ‘Jesus, stop that! Be quiet. Stop that.’ ‘Lockie, Lockie, Lockie!’ The little girl flew down the driveway and launched herself at her brother, who went, ‘Oof,’ but he steadied himself and wrapped his arms around her. ‘Lockie, Lockie, Lockie,’ she repeated, as if to make the moment real for herself. The man stood and stared at his children, still without realising that he was indeed looking at both his children. He started walking down the driveway. He began with an angry quick stride but the closer he got the more unsure his steps became. He was a big man in charge of a big farm but his steps became small and faltering. Tina could see the disbelief spreading across his face. Sammy let go of Lockie and took his hand. She started pulling him up the driveway. ‘It’s Lockie, Dad. Look, it’s Lockie, come look, Dad, Lockie’s home. He’s home, Dad. I knew he home. He’s home, Dad. I knew he would come home. I told you, Dad. Look its Lockie. Lockie, Lockie, Lockie’s home. Lockie’s home.’ The man stopped a few feet away from Lockie. His mouth was open. He moved it once or twice, but no words came out, and then came a sound that Tina had never heard before. It was a moaning, keening sound, but rough with the depth of his voice. It was four months of agony and the ecstasy of this moment all rolled into one. It was his heart right out there in the open for everyone to see. He opened his arms and dropped to his knees. Lockie let go of Sammy’s hand and continued alone up the driveway towards his father. He was twisting his hands and pulling at his jumper. He walked into his father’s arms and was completely surrounded by the large man. ‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, Dad, I’m sorry.’ At the bottom of the driveway Tina watched Lockie and his father. Lockie’s voice was muffled by his father’s arms, but Tina could still hear him repeating, ‘I’m sorry.’ Say it, Tina begged the man silently. Please, please, just say it. ‘Oh, Lockie,’ said the man through his tears, his large shoulders heaving. ‘It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault. I’m sorry, Lockie. I’m sorry. I’ve been looking for you, Lockie. Where did you go, mate? Where did you go?

grin. “If I’m going to lay down a fortune for the privilege of experiencing your quivering virgin flesh, I think it goes without saying that I expect to do it without a barrier.” I sat back, clenching my teeth so hard that my head started to ache. My gaze was held fast by the challenge in his ebony eyes. He might have been the most gorgeous creature I’d ever laid my eyes on, but he was also an asshat. He tilted his head at me, puzzled. “Why is that a problem? If we are both cleared by a physician—” I unclenched my jaw just long enough to reply. “Recent medical clearance is not sufficient for me. I’d require celibacy for at least the previous six months, so—” “Then there isn’t a problem.” I highly doubted that. I opened my mouth to call him a liar when Heath leaned forward and put his hand on the table in front of me. Drake’s lawyer cleared his throat, throwing a bland look at me and turning to Drake. “We can work all these details out later in mediation. Mr. Drake does have a plane to catch later today.” Drake’s eyes darted to Heath and back to me. I could tell he was trying to gauge our relationship. It wasn’t the first time a person had looked at the two of us in that unsure, questioning way. Heath was not obviously gay in any way. He wasn’t “fabulous” or flamboyant. He was very masculine in his behavior and mannerisms, so he rarely set off people’s gaydar. My gaze turned back to Drake, drawn to him like a flame pulled into a hot, dry wind. I resented the heat on my cheeks. I was not a habitual blusher. Hardly ever, actually. But this man was bringing my Irish up, as my mother liked to say. And what was worse, the more annoyed I grew with him, the more amused he seemed to be. Drake flicked a glance at Heath and then his lawyer. “Gentlemen, could you excuse us for a moment? You’re free to wait just outside the door.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he glanced at me. “If, of course, that is okay with the lady?” My face flamed hotter and I folded my hands on my lap. “Fine,” I said, wondering if the thirty-something New Yorker was still interested in the

We danced to John Michael Montgomery’s “I Swear.” We cut the seven-tiered cake, electing not to take the smear-it-on-our-faces route. We visited and laughed and toasted. We held hands and mingled. But after a while, I began to notice that I hadn’t seen any of the tuxedo-clad groomsmen--particularly Marlboro Man’s friends from college--for quite some time. “What happened to all the guys?” I asked. “Oh,” he said. “They’re down in the men’s locker room.” “Oh, really?” I asked. “Are they smoking cigars or something?” “Well…” He hesitated, grinning. “They’re watching a football game.” I laughed. “What game are they watching?” It had to be a good one. “It’s…ASU is playing Nebraska,” he answered. ASU? His alma mater? Playing Nebraska? Defending national champions? How had I missed this? Marlboro Man hadn’t said a word. He was such a rabid college football fan, I couldn’t believe such a monumental game hadn’t been cause to reschedule the wedding date. Aside from ranching, football had always been Marlboro Man’s primary interest in life. He’d played in high school and part of college. He watched every televised ASU game religiously--for the nontelevised games, he relied on live reporting from Tony, his best friend, who attended every game in person. “I didn’t even know they were playing!” I said. I don’t know why I shouldn’t have known. It was September, after all. But it just hadn’t crossed my mind. I’d been a little on the busy side, I guess, getting ready to change my entire life and all. “How come you’re not down there watching it?” I asked. “I didn’t want to leave you,” he said. “You might get hit on.” He chuckled his sweet, sexy chuckle. I laughed. I could just see it--a drunk old guest scooting down the bar, eyeing my poufy white dress and spouting off pickup lines: You live around here? I sure like what you’re wearing… So…you married? Marlboro Man wasn’t in any immediate danger. Of that I was absolutely certain. “Go watch the game!” I insisted, motioning downstairs. “Nah,” he said. “I don’t need to.” He wanted to watch the game so badly I could see it in the air. “No, seriously!” I said. “I need to go hang with the girls anyway. Go. Now.” I turned my back and walked away, refusing even to look back. I wanted to make it easy on him. I wouldn’t see him for over an hour. Poor Marlboro Man. Unsure of the protocol for grooms watching college football during their wedding receptions, he’d darted in and out of the locker room for the entire first half. The agony he must have felt. The deep, sustained agony. I was so glad he’d finally joined the guys.

You look like a goddess,” he murmured as he raked his eyes down her form. And she melted into a puddle. “Thank you.” She tried to sound cool and sophisticated. “I much prefer wearing a gown that’s not too tight.” “Except where it should be.” He dropped his gaze pointedly to her bosom. The frank admiration in his eyes made her glad that she’d let Betty guide her choice for tonight. After that other scandalous gown, she’d been reluctant to wear anything low cut, but this one did look beautiful on her, even with its décolletage. Salmon had always been a good color for her, and the satin rouleaux trim made her feel pretty and elegant. “So it’s presentable enough for dinner with your family?” she asked. “They don’t even deserve to see you in it.” The low rumble of his voice made her breath catch in her throat. “I only wish that you and I could-“ “You do look lovely,” said another voice. Lord Gabriel came up from behind Oliver, dressed all in black as usual. A look of pure mischief crossed his face. “Sorry I’m late, Miss Butterfield, but thank you, brother, for keeping her company until I arrived.” Oliver glared at him. “What the devil do you mean?” “I’m taking the young lady down to dinner.” “That office should be left to her fiancé, don’t you think?” Oliver bit out. “Pretend fiancé. You have no real claim on her. And since you had her to yourself all day…” Lord Gabriel offered his arm. “Shall we, Miss Butterfield?” Maria hesitated, unsure what to do. But Oliver was a danger to her sanity, and his brother wasn’t. So she was better off with Lord Gabriel. “Thank you, sir,” she said, taking his arm. “Now just wait one blasted minute. You can’t-“ “What? Be friendly to our guest?” Lord Gabriel asked, his face a mask of innocence. “Really, old boy, I didn’t realize it mattered that much. But if it upsets you to see Miss Butterfield on the arm of another man, I’ll certainly yield the field.” Lord Gabriel’s words seemed to give Oliver pause. Glancing from Maria to his brother, he smiled, though it didn’t nearly reach his eyes. “No, it’s fine,” he said tightly. “Perfectly fine.” When they headed down the hall with Oliver following behind, Lord Gabriel flashed her a conspiratorial glance. She wasn’t sure what the conspiracy was, but since it seemed to irritate Oliver, she went along. The incident was only the first in a series that continued throughout the week. Whenever she and Oliver found themselves alone, even for a moment, one of his siblings popped up to offer some entertainment-a stroll in the gardens, a ride into Ealing, a game of loo. With each instance, Oliver grew more annoyed, for no reason that she could see. Unless… No, that was crazy.

Chet couldn’t wipe away his smile. “I have learned much since we parted ways, and one of those lessons is that a static force, even in mass, can be crushed by a dynamic one.” Wellington‘s face stiffened. “What kind of foolish talk is that?” “You will find out. On the Fourth of July, as you sit here in your governor’s mansion pandering to your public servants—using them to climb into more power, you will learn what it feels like to have everything you believe in shatter before your very eyes.” Wellington shifted irritably in his seat. “What sort of riddle is that, Chet? You and I have been in this political game our entire lives. You know how it works, and that’s not going to change. Ever. One party controls the knobs of politics with one hand, and the other party controls the knobs with the other hand. But they are all one body, members of a political ruling class. That’s what we do. This isn’t anything new.” Chet pushed his brows over his eyes in a gaze that could melt steel. “You will not be able to stop the ramifications of its impact. This thing I’m about to unleash upon you, I’m doing to you because you are an evil man. I used to be, I’ll give you that. But I changed, luckily, before death found me. And I will not let you get away with what you are doing to this country.” Wellington was aghast. “So you’re involved with terrorism now, are you? What are you going to do?” Chet shook his head. “The truth isn’t something you can hide from people. They all feel it even if they don’t understand the intentions behind the madness.” Wellington was in a near panic in anticipation over what Chet was planning. “I can have you followed, you know. Everyone you speak to will be monitored. Surely you know that? And who are you to decide what the best position for anything is? You don’t have a right to make decisions for the masses. If you were sitting in my seat, perhaps. But you’re not.” “If you hadn’t cheated, I would be in your chair.” Chet pierced Wellington with his squinted eyes. “And because of that, I have decided that you aren’t able to make decisions for the masses either, and I’ll see to it that you won’t continue to do so.” Chet pushed back his chair and stood up dramatically. “Enjoy this office because you won’t be here long.” Wellington contorted his face in panic. “What are you doing? What’s going to happen? Tell me at least that much! Was it so bad between us that we can’t reason with each other? Maybe we could make a deal. What if I make you my presidential running mate?” Chet didn’t answer. He headed for the door, unsure as to why he had said that last part. He still didn’t really know what was going to happen. But with Rick Stevens headed down in a few days with a multimillion dollar car, anything was possible. But now Wellington would know that Chet was behind the crazy driver who refused to pull over.

The madness surged around him, and Rhy tore himself away from the breaking city and turned his sights again to his quest for the captain of the Night Spire. There were only two places Alucard Emery would go: his family estate or his ship. Logic said he’d go to the house, but something in Rhy’s gut sent him in the opposite direction, toward the docks. He found the captain on his cabin floor. One of the chairs by the hearth had been toppled, a table knocked clean of glasses, their glittering shards scattered in the rug and across the wooden floor. Alucard—decisive, strong, beautiful Alucard—lay curled on his side, shivering with fever, his warm brown hair matted to his cheeks with sweat. He was clutching his head, breath escaping in ragged gasps as he spoke to ghosts. “Stop … please …” His voice—that even, clear voice, always brimming with laughter—broke. “Don’t make me …” Rhy was on his knees beside him. “Luc,” he said, touching the man’s shoulder. Alucard’s eyes flashed open, and Rhy recoiled when he saw them filled with shadows. Not the even black of Kell’s gaze, but instead menacing streaks of darkness that writhed and coiled like snakes through his vision, storm blue irises flashing and vanishing behind the fog. “Stop,” snarled the captain suddenly. He struggled up, limbs shaking, only to fall back against the floor. Rhy hovered over him, helpless, unsure whether to hold him down or try to help him up. Alucard’s eyes found his, but looked straight through him. He was somewhere else. “Please,” the captain pleaded with the ghosts. “Don’t make me go.” “I won’t,” said Rhy, wondering who Alucard saw. What he saw. How to free him. The captain’s veins stood out like ropes against his skin. “He’ll never forgive me.” “Who?” asked Rhy, and Alucard’s brow furrowed, as if he were trying to see through the fog, the fever. “Rhy—” The sickness tightened its hold, the shadows in his eyes streaking with lines of light like lightning. The captain bit back a scream. Rhy ran his fingers over Alucard’s hair, took his face in his hands. “Fight it,” he ordered. “Whatever’s holding you, fight it.” Alucard folded in on himself, shuddering. “I can’t….” “Focus on me.” “Rhy …” he sobbed. “I’m here.” Rhy Maresh lowered himself onto the glass-strewn floor, lay on his side so they were face-to-face. “I’m here.” He remembered, then. Like a dream flickering back to the surface, he remembered Alucard’s hands on his shoulders, his voice cutting through the pain, reaching out to him, even in the dark. I’m here now, he’d said, so you can’t die. “I’m here now,” echoed Rhy, twining his fingers through Alucard’s. “And I’m not letting go, so don’t you dare.” Another scream tore from Alucard’s throat, his grip tightening as the lines of black on his skin began to glow. First red, then white. Burning. He was burning from the inside out. And it hurt—hurt to watch, hurt to feel so helpless. But Rhy kept his word. He didn’t let go.

Marlboro Man and Tim were standing in the hall, not seven steps from the bathroom door. “There she is,” Tim remarked as I walked up to them and stood. I smiled nervously. Marlboro Man put his hand on my lower back, caressing it gently with his thumb. “You all right?” he asked. A valid question, considering I’d been in the bathroom for over twenty minutes. “Oh yeah…I’m fine,” I answered, looking away. I wanted Tim to disappear. Instead, the three of us made small talk before Marlboro Man asked, “Do you want something to drink?” He started toward the stairs. Gatorade. I wanted Gatorade. Ice-cold, electrolyte-replacing Gatorade. That, and vodka. “I’ll go with you,” I said. Marlboro Man and I grabbed ourselves a drink and wound up in the backyard, sitting on an ornate concrete bench by ourselves. Miraculously, my nervous system had suddenly grown tired of sending signals to my sweat glands, and the dreadful perspiration spell seemed to have reached its end. And the sun had set outside, which helped my appearance a little. I felt like a circus act. I finished my screwdriver in four seconds, and both the vitamin C and the vodka went to work almost instantly. Normally, I’d know better than to replace bodily fluids with alcohol, but this was a special case. At that point, I needed nothing more than to self-medicate. “So, did you get sick or something?” Marlboro Man asked. “You okay?” He touched his hand to my knee. “No,” I answered. “I got…I got hot.” He looked at me. “Hot?” “Yeah. Hot.” I had zero pride left. “So…what were you doing in the bathroom?” he asked. “I had to take off all my clothes and fan myself,” I answered honestly. The vitamin C and vodka had become a truth serum. “Oh, and wipe the sweat off my neck and back.” This was sure to reel him in for life. Marlboro Man looked at me to make sure I wasn’t kidding, then burst into laughter, covering his mouth to keep from spitting out his Scotch. Then, unexpectedly, he leaned over and planted a sweet, reassuring kiss on my cheek. “You’re funny,” he said, as he rubbed his hand on my tragically damp back. And just like that, all the horrors of the evening disappeared entirely from my mind. It didn’t matter how stupid I was--how dumb, or awkward, or sweaty. It became clearer to me than ever, sitting on that ornate concrete bench, that Marlboro Man loved me. Really, really loved me. He loved me with a kind of love different from any I’d felt before, a kind of love I never knew existed. Other boys--at least, the boys I’d always bothered with--would have been embarrassed that I’d disappeared into the bathroom for half the night. Others would have been grossed out by my tale of sweaty woe or made jokes at my expense. Others might have looked at me blankly, unsure of what to say. But not Marlboro Man; none of it fazed him one bit. He simply laughed, kissed me, and went on. And my heart welled up in my soul as I realized that without question, I’d found the one perfect person for me.

My little undomesticated pornstar pushed me so hard between her legs, my oxygen levels plummeted. She clenched around my fingers through her panties as an orgasm rolled through her in waves. The gush of warmth soaked the cotton. I kissed her through the fabric, again and again, knowing tomorrow everything would return to its proper position—my boundaries, my limits, my hang-ups, my demons. “Can I return the favor?” Dallas sat half up. “But not through your briefs. Men’s briefs always smell like old cheese that’s been sitting in a crockpot for days. I know because whenever my housekeeper went on vacation, we all took turns doing the laundry. And, well, I really shouldn’t say, but Dadd—” Not wanting the moment to be ruined with a conversation about her father’s underwear, I pulled forward, shutting her smart mouth with a kiss that tasted like her sweet pussy. At first, she pinched her lips and made a face, unsure what she thought about her own taste. But when I dragged the tip of my hard cock along her slit through our clothes, she went wild and kissed me back, shoving her tongue so deep down my throat I thought she would fish out my dinner. “Yes.” She wiggled against me. “Please, sir, may I have some more?” She’d quoted Oliver Twist while getting fucked. Truly, the woman was one of a kind. Knowing it was idiotic, and dangerous, and deranged, I pushed my tip through her slit. She was tight—tighter, still, through the tattered, stretched cotton of her ruined panties—but wet and sleek, ready for what was coming. The sensation, how warm and taut she felt, completely undid me. I thrust harder and deeper, entering her through our underwear, fucking her slowly with only flimsy fabric between us. I tore my mouth from hers, eyes glued to my cock each time it sank into her. I could barely fit inside, she was so tight. This was, by far, the best fuck I’d ever had. She panted. “Is this what people call dry-humping?” No. Nothing about this was dry. I was basically fucking her through our underwear. Only, explaining to her that this was full-blown sex with a side order of my issues was not in my plans for tonight. Or ever. “Sure.” Each push brought me closer to a climax. From slow, controlled, teasing thrusts designed to drive her mad with desire, I quickly derailed to jerky, manic, need-to-be-inside-this-woman plunges. Of a man so hungry for human connection, for affection, for carnal needs to be met and satisfied. My head grew dizzy. I’d taken into consideration the possibility that Dallas couldn’t come through penetration. It merely placed her in the same majority as most females on Planet Earth. But she shook, clawed, and reached for me, looking ready to climax. Her tits bounced and jiggled each time I slammed into her. Her mouth opened in awe, probably because this orgasm felt different from the first two. Deeper and more violent. She clutched the lapels of my shirt, shoving her face in mine. “Lose the underwear.” She met my thrust, groaning when my crown peeked past the slot in my boxer briefs. “I want you to come inside me. I want to feel you.” I was about two seconds from fulfilling her demand. Luckily, my logic grabbed the steering wheel, which my cock had seized sometime this evening, and derailed the situation from full-blown calamity. I managed to wait until she came, just barely, before pulling out, flipping her onto her stomach, and jerking off. I aimed for her bare ass but somehow came on her hair. No matter. She had plenty of time to wash it. Her agenda wasn’t exactly full. Dallas fell back onto the pillows, a lopsided grin on her face. (Chapter 31)

Here we introduce the nation's first great communications monopolist, whose reign provides history's first lesson in the power and peril of concentrated control over the flow of information. Western Union's man was one Rutherford B. Hates, an obscure Ohio politician described by a contemporary journalist as "a third rate nonentity." But the firm and its partner newswire, the Associated Press, wanted Hayes in office, for several reasons. Hayes was a close friend of William Henry Smith, a former politician who was now the key political operator at the Associated Press. More generally, since the Civil War, the Republican Party and the telegraph industry had enjoyed a special relationship, in part because much of what were eventually Western Union's lines were built by the Union Army. So making Hayes president was the goal, but how was the telegram in Reid's hand key to achieving it? The media and communications industries are regularly accused of trying to influence politics, but what went on in the 1870s was of a wholly different order from anything we could imagine today. At the time, Western Union was the exclusive owner of the nationwide telegraph network, and the sizable Associated Press was the unique source for "instant" national or European news. (It's later competitor, the United Press, which would be founded on the U.S. Post Office's new telegraph lines, did not yet exist.) The Associated Press took advantage of its economies of scale to produce millions of lines of copy a year and, apart from local news, its product was the mainstay of many American newspapers. With the common law notion of "common carriage" deemed inapplicable, and the latter day concept of "net neutrality" not yet imagined, Western Union carried Associated Press reports exclusively. Working closely with the Republican Party and avowedly Republican papers like The New York Times (the ideal of an unbiased press would not be established for some time, and the minting of the Time's liberal bona fides would take longer still), they did what they could to throw the election to Hayes. It was easy: the AP ran story after story about what an honest man Hayes was, what a good governor he had been, or just whatever he happened to be doing that day. It omitted any scandals related to Hayes, and it declined to run positive stories about his rivals (James Blaine in the primary, Samuel Tilden in the general). But beyond routine favoritism, late that Election Day Western Union offered the Hayes campaign a secret weapon that would come to light only much later. Hayes, far from being the front-runner, had gained the Republican nomination only on the seventh ballot. But as the polls closed his persistence appeared a waste of time, for Tilden, the Democrat, held a clear advantage in the popular vote (by a margin of over 250,000) and seemed headed for victory according to most early returns; by some accounts Hayes privately conceded defeat. But late that night, Reid, the New York Times editor, alerted the Republican Party that the Democrats, despite extensive intimidation of Republican supporters, remained unsure of their victory in the South. The GOP sent some telegrams of its own to the Republican governors in the South with special instructions for manipulating state electoral commissions. As a result the Hayes campaign abruptly claimed victory, resulting in an electoral dispute that would make Bush v. Gore seem a garden party. After a few brutal months, the Democrats relented, allowing Hayes the presidency — in exchange, most historians believe, for the removal of federal troops from the South, effectively ending Reconstruction. The full history of the 1876 election is complex, and the power of th

I opened the door with a smile on my face that soon melted when I saw his messy appearance. The doorframe held him up as he leaned all of his weight against it. Expressionless, bloodshot eyes stared back at me as he lifted his hand and ran it roughly down his unshaved face. His hair was disheveled and there was blood on the front of his shirt. Panic rose up as I took him in. I rushed to him and ran my fingers down his body, as I checked for injuries. “You’re bleeding! Oh my God, Devin! What happened? Are you OK?” “It’s not my blood,” he slurred. I took a better look at his gorgeous face. His unfocused eyes attempted to meet mine and it was then that the smell of liquor reached me. “You’re drunk?” “Abso-fucking-lutely.” He attempted to move toward me and almost fell over. I wrapped my arms around him and helped him into my apartment. Once we made it to the couch I let him collapse onto the cushion before I went straight to work on his clothes. I removed his blood-stained shirt first and threw it to the side. Quickly checked him over again just to be sure that he wasn’t injured somewhere. His skin felt cold and clammy against my fingertips. His knuckles were busted open, so I went to the bathroom and got a wet towel and the first aid kit. I cleaned his fingers then wrapped them up. I felt fingers in my hair and looked up to see a very drunk Devin staring back at me. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispered as his heavy head fell against the back of my couch again. Shaking my head, I dropped onto my knees on the floor and removed his boots. Once I was done getting Devin out of his shoes, I went to the hallway closet and pulled out a blanket for him. When I got back to the couch, he was standing there looking back at me in all his tattooed, muscled glory. He was still leaning a bit to the side when his eyes locked on mine. “Come here,” he rasped. He looked as if he was about to crumble and I couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or if something was really breaking him down. “Are you OK, baby?” I asked. He closed his eyes and sighed. “I love it when you call me baby.” I went to him and he groaned as I softly ran my hands up his chest and put my arms around his neck. On my tiptoes, I softly kissed the line of his neck and his chin. “Tell me what happened, Devin.” When he finally opened his eyes, he looked at me differently. The calm and collected Devin was gone and an anxiety-ridden shell of a man stood before me. His shoulders felt tense beneath my fingers and his eyes held a crazed demeanor. “I need you, Lilly.” He captured my face softly in his hands as he slurred the words. “Please tell me what happened?” “Make it go away, baby,” he whispered as he leaned in and started to kiss me. I let him as I melted against his body. He collapsed against the couch once more, but this time he took me with him. Not once did he break our kiss, and soon, I felt his velvet tongue against mine. I kissed him back and let my fingers play in the hair at the back of his neck. He broke the kiss and started down the side of my neck. “I need you, Lilly,” he repeated against my skin. “I’m here.” I bit at my bottom lip to stop myself from moaning. “Please, just make it all go away,” he drunkenly begged. “I don’t know what’s going on, but tell me what to do to make it better. I want to make it better, Devin.” I stopped him and stared into his eyes as I waited for his response. “Don’t leave me,” he said desperately. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here. I’ll do whatever it takes to make it better.” I wanted to cry. He looked so hurt and afraid. It was strange to see such a strong, confident man so lost and unsure. He flipped me onto my back on the couch and crawled on top of me. His movements were less calculated—slower than usual. “I want you. I need to be inside you,” he said aggressively.

I pull the fire escape door open, scoop my eyeshadow palette off the ground and slip back inside. For a moment, I pause in the corridor and catch my breath. Adrenaline is surging through me. Rage. A normal woman would call the police at this point. But a normal woman would never have been paranoid enough in the first place to pretend to go to the toilet, only to sneak out of the fire escape and spy through a window to watch what her date does when he has five minutes alone with her drink. Nope. A normal woman would have gone to the loo, done a pee and topped up her lipstick. Or she’d have texted a friend about her hot date, feeling giddy with hope and excitement. Now, let’s think about what would have happened to a normal woman. A normal woman would have headed back to her date, smiling prettily, before sitting down and drinking her drugged drink. Then, a short while later, that normal woman would have started feeling far more drunk than she normally does after just a couple of drinks, but she’d probably blame herself. She’d wonder if maybe she’d drunk too much. Or maybe she’d blame herself for having not eaten earlier in the day because she didn’t want to look fat in her dress. Or maybe she’d blame herself because that’s just what she does; she blames herself. And then, just as she started to feel woozy and a bit confused, her date would take her outside for some fresh air and she’d be grateful to him. She’d think he was caring and responsible, when really, he was just whisking her out of sight, before she started to look less like she was drunk and more like she’d been drugged. And then the next thing she’d know, she’d be staggering into the back of a cab and her date would be asking her to tell the driver where she lived. And when she’d barely be able to get the words out and her date made a joke to the driver about how drunk she was, she’d feel small and embarrassed. And then she’d find herself slumping into her date’s open arms, flopping against his big manly body, and she’d feel grateful once more that this man was taking care of her and getting her home safe. And then, once the taxi slowed down and she blinked her eyes open and found they’d pulled up outside her flat, she’d notice in a fleeting moment of clarity that when the driver asked for the fare, her date thrust two crisp ten-pound notes towards him in a weirdly premeditated move, as though he’d known this moment was going to happen all along. As though he’d had the cash lined up, the plan set, and she’d feel something. Something. But then she’d be staggering out of the taxi, even sloppier than when she got in, and her legs would be buckling, and she’d cling to her date for support, her make-up now smudged, her eyes half-closed, her hair messy. She’d look a state and he’d ask her which flat was hers, and she’d walk with him to her front door, to the flat where she lives alone. To the place that’s full of books and cute knick-knacks from charity shops and colourful but inexpensive clothes. She’d unlock her front door, her hand sliding drunkenly over the lock, and she’d lead him into the place she’s been using as a base to try to get ahead in life, and then he’d look around, keen-eyed, until he spotted her bedroom and he’d draw her in. And then all of a sudden he’d be in her bedroom and she wouldn’t be able to remember if she’d asked him back or not or quite how this happened, and it would all be moving so fast and her thoughts would be unable to keep up – they’d keep sliding away – and he’d be kissing her and she’d be unsure what was happening as he pulled off her dress and she’d wonder, did she ask for this? Does she want this? Has she been a ‘slut’ again? But the thoughts would be weak, they’d keep falling away and he’d be confident and he’d be certain and he’d be good-looking and he’d be pulling off her bra and taking off her knickers. He’d be pushing himself inside her. The next day, he’d be gone by the time she woke up. She’d be blocked, unmatched...

Don't screw up the best thing in your life just because you're a little unsure about who you are.

And here she was, in the middle of a tangled situation she didn't remember or understand, painfully aware that a killer or killers on the loose almost certainly knew a hell of a lot more about what was going on than she did. As independent and self-reliant as she was, Riley had never felt so unsure of herself. She was adept at role-playing-it was one of her strengths-but this? This was a very, very dangerous game of blind man's bluff, and the one wearing the blindfold-her-had cotton in her ears and a clothespin on her nose as well. With the exception of Gordon, she didn't know who to trust, and he could offer little more than moral support since, if she had even reached any conclusions or formed any theories since arriving here, she had not confided them to him. As for the other man she was intimately close to… "Riley? Ready to order?" She looked across the top of her menu at this pale-eyed stranger whose bed she apparently shared, and ignored the cold knot in the pit of her belly to say calmly, "I'm ready." It was the second time she'd said that in the last couple of hours. She only hoped it was true.

People in Sicily were unsure which possible scenario was worse: that a judge entrusted with the most delicate mafia cases had sold himself to the enemy of that an honest man had been destroyed by an occult hand. Some suggested a third possibly, that Signorino was not guilty of outright collusion but that he had committed some impropriety, accepted some favor, met or knew certain people of dubious reputation, which would invariant create an appearance of guilt with which he could not live.

She could be more scared than I am. And I don't know what to do to reassure her, especially since I'm trying to reassure myself.

Disgusted by Edison’s shameless cruelty and dishonesty, Tesla began performing regular exhibitions of his technology in his laboratory in which he lighted lamps by allowing alternating current electricity to flow through his body. Public opinion swung to and fro, unsure of whom to believe.

I closed my eyes, laid my head back on the pillow, and savored my first moments alone with my child. Seconds later, the door to my room opened and my brother-in-law, Tim, walked in. He’d just finished working a huge load of cattle. Marlboro Man would have been, too, if I hadn’t gone into labor the night before. “Hey!” Tim said enthusiastically. “How’s it going?” I yanked the bedsheet far enough north to cover the baby’s head and my exposed breast; as much as I loved my new brother-in-law, I just couldn’t see myself being that open with him. He caught on immediately. “Oops--did I come at a bad time?” Tim asked, a deer caught in the headlights. “You just missed your brother,” I said. The baby’s lips fell off my nipple and she rooted around and tried to find it again. I tried to act like nothing was happening under the covers. “No kidding?” Tim asked, looking nervously around the room. “Oh, I should have called first.” “Come on in,” I said, sitting up in the bed as tall as I could. The epidural had definitely worn off. My bottom was beginning to throb. “How’s the baby?” he asked, wanting to look but unsure if he should look in her direction. “She’s great,” I answered, pulling the little one out from under the covers. I prayed I could get my nipple quickly tucked away without incident. Tim smiled as he regarded his new niece. “She’s so cute,” he said tenderly. “Can I hold her?” He reached out his arms like a child wanting to hold a puppy. “Sure,” I said, handing her over, my bottom stinging by now. All I could think about was getting in the shower and spraying it with the nozzle I’d noticed earlier in the day when the nurse escorted me to the bathroom. I’d started obsessing over it, in fact. The nozzle was all I could think about. Tim seemed as surprised at the baby’s gender as his brother had been. “I was shocked when I heard!” he said, looking at me with a smile. I laughed, imagining what Marlboro Man’s dad might be thinking. That the first grandchild in such a male-dominated ranching family turned out to be a girl was becoming more humorous to me each minute. This was going to be an adventure.

I think now that White's quest for the hawks was his final test of Gos: he was behaving like a fearful man who has finally won someone's love and, unsure whether that love can be trusted, decides it is safer to obsess about someone else.

I sit there for a while, studying the beautiful man in my bed. I know there is something he's not telling me. I'm not so dazzled by him not to recognize that. But we are all still new friends and there is probably a great deal we have not yet told each other. He sits up, leans over, and kisses me on the lips, gently. I'm so surprised I stare at him mutely. I'm pretty sure my mouth is hanging open. It feels like it is, I'm not yet capable of closing it. "Thank you for tonight," he says. "I'm sorry it derailed a bit." I pull myself together. "I should let you get some sleep." Cain looks unsure now. Uncertain. "God, Freddie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to - " "Kiss me?" I try not to sound too dismayed by the change of heart. "To take advantage of the situation." I smile. "You're the one with head injury." "I've been wanting to kiss you since well before Boo hit me on the head." "You have?" I'm aware I sound like a doe-eyed teenager. I take a breath and remind myself that I'm twenty-seven. "I'm glad. And I don't object. Far from it...I'm a little worried that you may be concussed." He laughs. Oh, what the hell - I kiss him now. And we linger in the tingling discovery of it. And then I am staring at him again and he at me, like we're locked into each other.

I’m telling you this so that you can understand. When Midas came along, I was broken. I’d never known a kind touch by a man. I’d never known what love was or even real friendship. I didn’t even know myself yet. I may not have been innocent, but I was naive—unsure of who I was, who I could be.

I’m telling you this so that you can understand. When Midas came along, I was broken. I’d never known a kind touch by a man. I’d never known what love was or even real friendship. I didn’t even know myself yet. I may not have been innocent, but I was naive – unsure of who I was, who I could be.’ Vulnerability pierces me right in my chest, but I know I can’t stop now. Even though I’ve run out of breath, I have to keep on exhaling, keep on purging, or else I’m going to suffocate in my own poison. I lift a shoulder. ‘I thought I loved him. I thought he loved me. For a long time, I convinced myself that was what love and friendship was, because I didn’t know any better.’ From across the room, I see Slade’s pale throat bob with a hard swallow, the roots of his power twisting around his neck. ‘And now?’ he rumbles. ‘Now I know that I was a girl clinging to my own stagnancy, because I was terrified of being thrown back into the world that had abused me. I couldn’t face the truth that Midas was abusing me too, just in a different way.

Mr. Hayes stood close to me, his wavy hair tousled, the color a mix of brown and red, as if unsure of what it wanted to be. Much like the man himself.

Don’t…leave.” A soft breath leaves her lips as her brown eyes stay hidden. A slow flash of her lashes flutter, and she grabs my hand. It’s the first time she’s yearned for me with her words. I’m paralyzed like a man seeing a shooting star for the first time. This is a moment, the beginning of a path I’m unsure of, with an ending I cannot see.

Narian was walking restlessly around his parlor when I entered, and my worry increased tenfold. Was he moving about because he was in pain? I glanced around the room, noticing an empty wineglass and a half-eaten bowl of soup. “You’re out of breath, Alera,” he said with a smile. “I hope that means your conversation with Nantilam went well.” I hesitated, unsure how to begin, unsure how to tell him what she was demanding, what she had done to him. Unsure how to tell him she had meted out one last betrayal. “How are you feeling?” I blurted, and he laughed. “I’m fine, but you don’t seem to be. Come and talk to me.” He took my hand and led me to the sofa, pulling me down to sit beside him. He winced as he did so, an indication he was experiencing some discomfort. I brushed his hair off his forehead, subtly checking for a fever, then told him of the High Priestess’s desires. “The terms of the actual treaty are not a problem, Narian, but Nantilam won’t enter into it unless you agree to make Cokyri your home. She wants to control your power, now and in the future, even to the point of progeny.” “Alera,” he calmly said, taking both my hands in his. “Those decisions are not hers to make. Besides, she’s a little late.” “I don’t understand.” He looked at me, bemused, then rolled up his right shirtsleeve, revealing an intricate tattoo encircling his forearm just below the elbow--the Cokyrian symbol that a man was voluntarily bound to a woman. I stared at it; I stared at him; and I burst into tears. His eyebrows rose in surprise, but he nonetheless took me into his arms. “That’s not the reaction I expected,” he drolly commented, “but it’s convinced me something is wrong.” “How….are…you…feeling?” I managed between sobs. “You’ve already asked me that, and I’m fine.” When I finally had my weeping under control, words tumbled from my mouth. “Even if the revolt has been successful, the High Priestess won’t enter into a treaty unless you stay in Cokyri. Otherwise, she’ll attack Hytanica again, and this time she will kill all of our military leaders and enslave my people. And she wants you to bind yourself to a woman of her choosing because if your powers pass to a child, she wants the child to be Cokyrian.” “That’s all well and good, but this time, she won’t be able to have things her way. There’s no need for you to worry about this. We are strong enough to take her on, Alera.” “But we’re not.” I glanced once more toward the food he had been given, and a flicker of understanding appeared in his eyes. “We have no choice, Narian, because she’s poisoned your food and drink and only she can heal you. And I don’t know what to do, only that I cannot let you die!” “Shhh,” he soothed, holding me close, and I couldn’t understand how he could be so calm. Not when panic rose higher inside me with each passing moment. When I had quieted, resting with my head cradled against his chest, he tried to sort through the things I had said. “So Nantilam, in her wisdom, has linked Hytanican’s freedom to my willingness to stay in Cokyri, and she has effectively taken me out of the fighting by poisoning my food?” I shudder, then nodded. “If I stay here, she is willing to sign a treaty, but if I’m not, she will never relinquish Hytanica and I won’t be around to prevent it.” “Yes,” I murmured. “So she is tearing us apart, dictating the rest of my life and we have to go along with it or she will destroy Hytanica?” “Yes. And we’re running out of time.” He shook his head in awe. “I have to hand it to her, Alera. She’s ruthless in pursuing what she wants.” “This is serious, Narian.” I found his attitude almost irritating. He obviously understood the direness of his situation, yet was acting like it was only a game. “I know it’s serious, but there is only one choice as far as I’m concerned. I don’t want to live without you, Alera. I won’t live without you.

Finishing her cigarette, Raven put it out in the ashtray then sighed. “I never really bought into the God thing. Religion felt like a lie men told to make people listen to them. Mostly, it seemed dumb to think a magic man in the sky cared about us. Like if I was a magic man and could make the earth or whatever, I wouldn’t waste time on helping out losers.” Raven set the ashtray on the ground and crossed her arms as if cold. “I see what Lark has now with you, this house, the ugly dogs, her friends, and now the baby. It makes me think God might exist. While losers run in our family, Lark could be more if she let herself. Now she has more and I think God might have helped her out. I prayed someone would. Even not believing, I prayed and told God if He was real and wanted me to believe that He needed to help Lark. I guess He heard me because she’s happy like I’ve never seen her happy before. Not even when Phoenix was alive and we were the best we ever were as a family.” “I’m glad you’re here and you’re welcome to stay as long as you want, but, Raven, my dogs aren’t ugly.” She laughed and tapped her foot against mine. “You’re a good guy. I know I said that before, but I didn’t think you would be. I’ve been around and good guys are rare.” “They exist though.” Raven nodded. “I need to quit men the way I need to quit smoking. Just go cold turkey. If I try to be rational about it, I’ll fool myself into falling for another creep. No, just say enough is enough all that shit. Focus on other stuff like a job and roller derby and family.” “If you ever get sick of living here, the Johanssons have an apartment that Cooper used to live in.” “There are plenty of apartments in Ellsberg.” “Yeah, but if you want to avoid loser men, those apartments won’t help. They’re full of assholes. College shitheads and lowlife fuckers. If you stay out there with the Johanssons, no man will bother you. You might even like Bailey. She’s an acquired taste, but a good friend if you can deal with her mouth.” “Bossy bitches are my favorite,” Raven said, pulling her knees up to her chest. “No hurry moving out though. Lark is feeling unsure about stuff and having you here makes her feel more centered. Like she’s combining her old life with her new one and it fits.” “I just have one question, bud,” Raven said, standing up and ready to leave the cold evening. “Are you planning to fix her damn worm?” “I don’t normally tattoo pregnant women.” “You really going to have your kid born to a chick with a worm tattoo?” Smiling at Raven, I nodded. “I don’t want to do anything to jinx the pregnancy. Since we’ve been together, Lark was hurt by Larry, got into a fight with my ex, and had to hide under the table during a bar brawl. I want the rest of her pregnancy to be as pain free as possible.” “Sissy,” she said, grinning. “I’m really glad you aren’t an asshole. It was a pleasant surprise.” “Glad you approve, but don’t mock my dogs again and stop barking at Pollack.” “Fuck off,” she said over her shoulder while walking inside.

Walking up to the screened porch, however, I felt as strange and disconnected as I had ever been in my entire life. It was as if I were two people: a man who was a capable detective, a loving husband, and a devoted father who was heading toward a quiet little house in the South, and an unsure and fearful boy of eight trudging toward a home that might be filled with music, love, and joy or, just as easily, screaming, turmoil, and madness.

Don't even let a man make you feel unsure of yourself. He wasn't man enough to treat you right.

Or if, as in the majority of cases in the present day, the parents themselves are anxious and bewildered in the tumultuous seas of the changing times, unsure of themselves and beset by self-doubts, their anxiety will carry over and lead the child to feel that he lives in a world in which it is dangerous to venture into becoming one’s self.

two flatbed tow trucks lumbered down the driveway. Each with a covered vehicle on the back. They pulled up in front of the house and positioned themselves to unload the vehicles. The man in the first truck got out and said, “This Stargazer Ranch?” Jack replied, “Yeah.” “You the owner, Jack Turner?” “Yeah.” “Delivery’s for you, man.” Jack and Caleb came off the porch, staring at the trucks and the man. “Whose cars are these?” “Yours. Sign here, please.” Jack signed and the man got out two pink slips. “Who gets the Camaro?” Caleb and Jack looked at each other blankly. “She didn’t,” Caleb blurted. “If the she you’re referring to goes by Jenna Caldwell, then yes, she did,” the delivery man said. “Uh, the Camaro is mine, I guess.” Jack couldn’t believe it. She bought him a car. “Okay, sign here.” Jack did and took the pink slip. “Is the Mustang for you?” the delivery man asked Caleb. Caleb opened his mouth, closed it, then said still unsure, “Uh, yeah, I guess it is.” “Sign here and we’ll get them unloaded.” “Jack, she bought me a car. Why did she buy me a car?” Stunned, they could only stare. “This can’t be real. People don’t buy other people cars. Not like this.” “I don’t know. She bought me one, too,” Jack said, dumbfounded. -Deliveryman, Jack, & Caleb

The Bible . . . is the only Book that offers man a redemption and points the way out of his dilemmas. It is our one sure guide in an unsure world.

I don’t know if a young girl such as yourself can satisfy the needs of an older, mature man.” Qualify a young girl by making it seem as if you’re unsure of her life experience.

You’re trying to explain the teeth, right?”  I sounded pathetic, like a child who needed reassurance.  I tried not to fidget on top of that. He gave me the reassurance I needed in one of his rare nods. Okay.  No kissing.  Just him moving closer.  He slept at the foot of my bed every night.  That was pretty close—right on my feet—and no big deal.  But he had fur on when he did that.  Now he looked... I eyed him again.  My stomach did a funny flip.  Maybe my fear wasn’t about his reaction, but mine.  I was afraid I’d forget myself.  I needed his control.  I took a deep breath. “It’s okay then.  Go ahead, explain.  I’ll behave,” I promised quietly.  I saw his mustache twitch with a quick smile.  The canines explained some of the facial hair, but the full-bearded, crazy-man look seemed overkill. After a slight hesitation, he leaned forward again while keeping his hands loose at his sides.  I pushed back the fear and held still.  He didn’t stop his slow approach until his whiskers tickled the side of my neck and collarbone.  There he paused and inhaled deeply. As soon as he inhaled, I knew what he was doing, and although I didn’t move, fear blossomed.  Heart pounding, eyes wide, I waited for him to finish scenting me as a werewolf would a potential Mate, not a distant inhale, but an up-close sample of my scent, infinitely more potent.  His warm exhale sent goose bumps skittering over my arms.  I braced myself, anticipating some type of slip in his highly-praised control.  He leisurely inhaled once more then lifted his head, exhaling as he went. With his face only inches from mine, he opened his mouth to display his teeth again.  The canines had grown even more pronounced, the surrounding gums swollen from their thickness. I didn’t know what to say.  He had canines when in his human form because of me. “So, when you’re around me, they’re worse?  I guess that means they’re like that all the time.” He shrugged and casually took a step back.  I was unsure what the shrug meant. We

The truth—this was beyond an attraction, he was exceedingly drawn to the man, more so than he'd ever experienced in his life. But that wasn't the only problem. Avery Adams flustered him, made him feel unsure and tongue-tied. The calm he trusted to always fall into place seemed to disappear, and he was left a bumbling mass of nerves. He absolutely didn't want to go back to that table.

Once they were all checked in, LeRoy ushered them back out to the plaza. He clapped twice. “Work begins now!” Unsure, the Juniors clutched their strange glass scythes and stared at one another, then at Uncle Mort. “You heard the man!” he shouted in an uncharacteristically jubilant voice. “Go reap some souls—you know you want to! Group hug!” He gathered them up into a tight, almost crushing embrace. “Not a word out loud about this until I say so,” he hissed. “Or I will Damn you myself.” He let them go and waved. “Have fun, champs!

Talon.” Her voice reached him just as he began the first note of his death song and his heart leaped. “Talon. Can you hear me?” He tried to open his eyes, but they were weighed down with mud. He smelled her. She was very close. He wanted to reach out to her, but he was so tired. “Talon.” Something warm and alive brushed his lips. Her caress was sweet and powerful. Feather-light, it jolted him with the intensity of a lightning bolt. If he didn’t hold on to her, the cold mud would seep into his nose and throat and choke the life from him. “Talon . . . don’t die,” she whispered. He opened his eyes just as she kissed him a second time with infinite tenderness. She gasped as he threw his good arm around her and crushed her against him. She was warm and alive. Vision or flesh and blood woman, she’d not leave him. Talon pressed his mouth against hers with searing heat. “Talon,” she cried, as she struggled free of his embrace and stood trembling, apparently unsure whether to run or fling herself back into his arms. “You’re . . . you’re awake,” she managed. A slow smile spread over his face. She covered her mouth with her hand. Her lips were tingling. “I was afraid . . .” she began. “I mean . . . I thought that you . . .” She put distance between them. “Your fever was very high,” she said quickly. “We . . . I was afraid that you—” “I am not dead, Becca,” he said hoarsely. “I . . . can see that.” Unconsciously, she rubbed her mouth. “You . . . you kissed me,” she whispered. “You kissed me first.” She felt giddy. “I did, didn’t I?” He closed his eyes again. “We must talk of this later,” he murmured. “Now, I can’t seem to keep my eyes open.” She reached for the brimming cup of medicine his sister had left when she went out. “You . . . you must have something to drink,” she said. “Are you in pain?” He made a sound that might have been either a low groan or a chuckle. “A man who was not a warrior of the Mecate Shawnee might say that.” “You fought with a bear,” she reminded him. “What shame is there to admit that you hurt? You’re human, aren’t you?” His black eyes snapped open with the intensity of a steel trap. “A Shawnee? Human?” he challenged. “Do you hear what you say?” “By Christ’s wounds, Talon! You’re as human as I am.” He sighed and his eyelids drifted closed. “Remember that, Becca . . . remember. I am just a man. A man . . . who cannot . . . cannot hate his . . . prisoner.

The Psychopath Free Pledge   When members first join our forum, we ask them to take a pledge. It’s a promise that honors self-respect and encourages healthy relationships. If you follow these simple points, you will find permanent freedom from toxic bonds:   I will never beg or plead for someone else again. Any man or woman who brings me to that level is not worth my heart. I will never tolerate criticisms about my body, age, weight, job, or any other insecurities I might have. Good partners won’t put me down, they’ll raise me up. I will take a step back from my relationship once every month to make sure that I am being respected and loved, not flattered and love-bombed. I will always ask myself the question: “Would I ever treat someone else like this?” If the answer is no, then I don’t deserve to be treated like that either. I will trust my gut. If I get a bad feeling, I won’t try to push it away and make excuses. I will trust myself. I understand that it is better to be single than in a toxic relationship. I will not be spoken to in a condescending or sarcastic way. Loving partners will not patronize me. I will not allow my partner to call me jealous, crazy, or any other form of projection. My relationships will be mutual and equal at all times. Love is not about control and power. If I ever feel unsure about any of these steps, I will seek out help from a friend, support forum, or therapist. I will not act on impulsive decisions.

Charles ventured into the room — and saw then that Gareth was not alone.  Cradled in his left arm and smiling adoringly up at him was the little girl he'd glimpsed last night, the little girl that he, Charles, had sired — and who would grow up calling Gareth "Papa" instead of him. Dear God.  Dear God, above.  His gaze flashed to the door. Gareth noted the direction of his suddenly unsure gaze. "Want to hold her?" Charles swallowed, hard.  "I . . . I am not sure." "Charlotte," murmured Gareth, and Charles saw his own uncertainty reflected in his brother's eyes.  "Charlotte, this is … this is, uh … your uncle, Charles." The child turned her guileless blue gaze on Charles.  The smile that dimpled her cheeks abruptly faded. "Here."  Gareth stood up and walked around the table, the little girl securely in his arms.  "Say hello." After all, if things had gone differently, she'd have been yours. Charles tensed as his brother placed the toddler in his lap.  He looked down into eyes as blue, at hair as blond, as his own, and was assailed by a hundred different emotions, none of which he could name, none of which he could, in his current state of mind, of heart, understand.  Panic assailed him.  This was too much.  Too fast.  Too unexpected, and too damned awkward.  He looked helplessly up at Gareth, and in that moment Charlotte, unsure, and now fearful, screwed up her face and began to cry.  Struggling in Charles's arms, she reached for Gareth in a desperate plea to be rescued by the only man she would ever know as her father. Gareth all but grabbed the child from him, making a lame and embarrassed comment about "having to get used to them first," while Charles retreated, stiff-backed, rejected, and confused. "Uncle," he murmured, softly. "Yes, and that is how it must remain," Gareth said, with a level look that brooked no dispute.  "I am her father, Charles.  Not you." "Yes … yes, you are." His heartbeat was returning to normal, but it was too painful to look at the toddler, this solid and unmistakable evidence of a "mistake" that he had once made, a mistake that his own brother had taken it upon himself to fix.  In time, maybe he would come to regard little Charlotte with affection.  With love.  He certainly hoped so.  But right now … right now, his heart was too raw, his guilt too great.  It had been like holding a stranger's child, not his own flesh and blood.  She might look like him, but the baby was Gareth's, not his.  She would always be Gareth's. What