McKenzie Ketron

“I watched him pitch the ball at a table neatly lined with six bowling pins, my stomach giving a little flutter when his T-shirt crept up in the back, revealing a stripe of skin. I knew from experience that every inch of him was hard, defined muscle. His back was smooth and perfect too, the scars from when he’d fallen once again replaced with wings—wings I, and every other human, couldn’t see.

“Five dollars says you can’t do it again,” I said, coming up behind him.

Patch looked back and grinned. “I don’t want your money, Angel.”

“Hey now, kids, let’s keep this discussion PG-rated,” Rixon said.

“All three remaining pins,” I challenged Patch.

“What kind of prize are we talking about?” he asked.

“Bloody hell,” Rixon said. “Can’t this wait until you’re alone?”

Patch gave me a secret smile, then shifted his weight back, cradling the ball into his chest. He dropped his right shoulder, brought his arm around, and sent the ball flying forward as hard as he could. There was a loud crack! and the remaining three pins scattered off the table.

“Aye, now you’re in trouble, lass,” Rixon shouted at me over the commotion caused by a pocket of onlookers, who were clapping and whistling for Patch. Patch leaned back against the booth and arched his eyebrows at me. The gesture said it all: Pay up.

“You got lucky,” I said.

“I’m about to get lucky.”
― Becca Fitzpatrick, Crescendo

“You smell good, too,” said Patch

It’s called a shower.” I was staring straight ahead. When he didn’t answer, I turned sideways. “Soap. Shampoo. Hot water.”

Naked. I know the drill.”
― Becca Fitzpatrick, Hush, Hush

“I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.”
― Neil Gaiman

“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.”
― Stephen Hawking