Nice Girls Don't Bite Their Neighbors

Look, over the years, my unique sense of humor and perverse grasp of honesty may have led to some hurt feelings and long-held grudges. But overall, I'm a pretty likable person.

Can we get a whiteboard,like on Law and Order?" Andrea asked. Dick nodded. "I was thinking official 'Keep Jane from Being Murdered Task Force' T-shirts.

I came home to find him propped up on a stack of pillows, sipping blood through a crazy straw (because it amused Zeb) and wearing Star Wars pajamas (because it amused Dick).

And how is Jamie doing?" "Fine. He seems to be spending a lot of time in the shower," I noted quietly, my voice so low that even Jamie's super hearing couldn't pick it up. Dick chuckled, followed by Zeb and Gabriel. "What?" "Remember that summer I turned thirteen and my mom complained that she couldn't ever get me out of the bathroom?" Zeb asked. "Yeah, but that's because you were-" I slapped my hand over my mouth. "Oh!" "Welcome to the wonderful world of parenting," Zeb said. ""It's one big, horrifying miracle." "Augh!" I grumbled.

The ring is a copy of my mother’s. I took the stone from her engagement ring and had a jeweler place it in a titanium setting.” “Titanium?” I asked. “Dick knew a guy." “Of course he did.” “You’re a bit rough and tumble with jewelry, and I knew it would have to be able to stand up to…” “Nuclear winter?” His eyebrow lifted. “I never know with you.

...yourself into an information-overload-fueled frenzy, convinced that you could arrange the whole wedding yourself, and eventually killed one of your loved ones in a glue-gun-related mishap

My color schemes were limited to what would go with the pewter-gray gown...except for the bridesmaids' gowns. I'd already decided that they were going to be a distinctly nonmatchy lemon yellow that Jolene's aunt Vonnie would have to special-order. The kind of yellow one would find on takeout menus or particularly urgent Post-it notes. In fact, if the outdoor lighting failed, we could use the color of their dresses to illuminate the ceremony. And yes, i had to use a vendor who hated me, because Vonnie held the only pattern left in the continental United States for the "Ruffle and Dreams," the very dress I'd had to wear in Jolene's wedding. Revenge would would be mine, for a few months, until i revealed the dove-gray bridesmaids' dresses i actually planned for them to wear.

We're allergic to to silver. Imagine sticking your hand in a hornets' nestand being forced to listen to the Wiggles while the little bastards repeatedly sting you

Why are you limping?” I demanded. “The arrow didn’t hit you in the leg.” He stopped, his shift in weight pulling me to a halt, too. “I don’t know. It just seems like the thing to do after you’ve received an arrow wound.” I sighed as he straightened his gait and walked normally. “You are so the guy for me.

I was just settling into the salons of Austenian Bath when Gabriel muttered, "This is strange." I looked up to see him pulling a long blue-gray thread from between the nearly translucent pages. My jaw dropped, and I was kneeling on the chaise in a flash. "Is the binding coming loose? No, don't pull it! I can take it to my book doctor tomorrow night." "Stop hyperventilating, sweetheart. I think it's a bookmark," he said, pulling on the thread until he stretched it to my hand. "Here." I wound the thread around my finger. "What passage was it marking?" He scanned the page and lifted an eye. "It's an Edward and Jane scene. I know how you love those. Edward's saying, 'I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you---especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame.'" I was so caught up in watching his lips as they formed the words that I barely noticed the sudden tension on the fiber wound around my finger. I realized now that Gabriel had slipped a ring onto the thread and was sliding it toward me. I watched as the respectable diamond twinkled in the light of the oil lamp. "I'm not Edward, " Gabriel promised. "I'm not afraid the thread will break and leave me bleeding. Our thread's already been tested. And it will hold up. I'm asking you to make the link permanent. Please, marry me.

because daytime leaves vampires less than, well, conscious, I told him, “Take your muffins to Boston and shut it, Terrance.” And then I hung up on him.

Let’s just wait and see if I like the girls they marry,” she said. “So, that means your dress is new, and the necklace is old and blue. What can you borrow?” “A time machine

You really love him, huh? Not just the sweet ‘oh, we met in high school and just couldn’t seem to find someone else’ sort of love, but the epic, desperate, ‘move mountains and cross oceans’ sort of love.” I chuckled. “I think that would be an apt description. When you realize that someone would do anything for you, even if it means separating themselves from you, risking that you’ll never love them again, just to make sure you’re safe and well . . . There’s no coming back from that. You’ll do whatever it takes to be with them. You might want to kick their ass a few times along the way. But when you find that, you don’t let it go.” Jamie shuddered. “Too mushy?” I asked. “I’ll survive.

You know, it’s at times like this that I’m really glad I’m friends with Dick Cheney,” I said as Andrea squeezed my fingers with her free hand. “He is handy to have around when you need favors of a secretive and dubious nature,” she acknowledged