Slow Shift Quotes

“But for Chase, for the brave boy who loved him when he had no reason to, for the boy who wrapped himself in magic and runes and a world that he didn’t belong to, who ran with Lucas in his dreams... And for Tyler, who smiles now—small, sad, and shy—who watches the world like he’s afraid it will hurt him, who glares and snaps because he would rather drive someone away than be left behind... For them, he would wash his hands in blood, stain them red until they were never clean, would murder the world to keep them safe.”
― Nazarea Andrews, Slow Shift

“I’m not—Lucas, I’m not Chelsea or Sarah. I’m just a kid playing with magic and trying to keep up with you and Tyler. You don’t have to kill for me.” Lucas stares at him, because he still doesn’t get it. Chase is brilliant and powerful and sweet and theirs, and he still doesn’t fucking get it.”
― Nazarea Andrews, Slow Shift

“I’m not going to tell you I’ll shoot you if you break his heart. You already know he can do it, and I think Lucas would rip your throat out before I could get my gun. So that’s out. But I will remind you of this: he trusts you not to hurt him.” He studies the other man. “You’re one of the only people in the world who can. Me and Ben and the Pack—that’s it. No one else matters to my son. You sure as hell better be worth his love.”
― Nazarea Andrews, Slow Shift

“Do you think one day it’ll stop hurting?” he asks and Tyler’s hand latches onto his. “No,” he whispers hoarsely. “But I think it helps, having someone to help carry it.”
― Nazarea Andrews, Slow Shift

“But mostly, when he watches Chase, cursing in the kitchen, giggling on the couch, drooling in Tyler’s bed, bickering with his father, he thinks—this boy is magic, because magic is the only thing that could heal him, bring him from the wrecked shell of what he was, what the accident left him, and Chase did that. Chase brought him back. He thinks, for all of Chase’s power and tricks and charms, that is the strongest magic Chase works. He creates family and worth from charred remains and shattered devastation. Lucas would die to protect him, and he will kill, to keep him safe.”
― Nazarea Andrews, Slow Shift

“You know I’m not fourteen anymore, right?” Chase asks. John’s gaze narrows, because they still avoid The Summer We Don’t Talk About. “Chase, lemme tell you a secret,” John says. “You are always going to be fourteen to me. You’re always going to be five and one and sixteen, and three and ten and a newborn—I see all of it when I look at you, everything I did right and everything I wrong.” “Dad,” Chase whispers, looking struck. “That’s what being a parent is. I know you can take care of yourself, I know you trust Tyler and Lucas—and I know you’re right. But Chase, I’m always going to want to protect you.”
― Nazarea Andrews, Slow Shift

“Chase looks small in Tyler’s big bed. John thinks maybe all children look small to their parents when they’re sleeping—but Chase has always been too big to be contained, moving in his sleep, filling up the world with his words, enthusiasm, curiosity, and love.”
― Nazarea Andrews, Slow Shift

“Chase, his brilliant, fierce boy who read him Tolkien and fed him oranges and whispered his secrets—Chase made him promise. And he wants to break that promise right now so badly that his gums itch with the need to Shift. He promised. He promised Chase.”
― Nazarea Andrews, Slow Shift

“He smiles at her. “You kinda complete me,” he says fondly. She snorts. “Of course I do. We’re obviously better together.” She wrinkles her nose., “But not as—” “No,” he agrees, and she grins at him. “Not as.”
― Nazarea Andrews, Slow Shift

“You are opening yourself up to a world that isn’t yours. He can feel the preserve, the house they built, his father’s heartbeat, steady and familiar. You won’t be able to go back if you do this. He smiles. You will belong to them. To their world. You’re wrong, he’d told Harper calmly, They’ll belong to me.”
― Nazarea Andrews, Slow Shift

“Chase, what are you doing?” “I’m trying to protect someone,” he says. Later he’ll wonder if it’s because he’s so tired, or because he wants desperately to be honest, or if it’s simply because, under her steely green gaze, he can’t possibly lie. But in the moment, while she stares at him and his fingers shake with exhaustion and caffeine, he’s painfully honest. “I want to protect someone I love.” She stares at him, then nods and puts her books aside, giving him a small smile. “How can I help?”
― Nazarea Andrews, Slow Shift

“Tyler freezes. Chase isn’t the small, wide-eyed little boy he remembers. He doesn’t reek of grief and loneliness anymore. He isn’t hunched in on himself and afraid. Somehow, even watching him, Tyler managed to miss that Chase has grown up over the years. He’s grinning, wide and happy, his shoulders broad and straight as he bounces in place, muscular arms long and lean like the rest of him, glee written all over his face, confidence radiating from every gorgeous inch of him. And he’s gorgeous. The boy who forced his way into Tyler’s pack and family has grown up into a gorgeous man with distractingly pink lips, strong arms, and hair the perfect length for pulling, and—how the actual fuck had he missed this?”
― Nazarea Andrews, Slow Shift

“There are times, when he’s got his arm around a girl and Ben is laughing with Brielle, that he feels like he fits here, that he isn’t a broken boy with a dead mother and more baggage than he knows what to do with. And there are times, pressed against a pretty girl in a dark theatre, the unfamiliar taste of lipgloss on his mouth, that he feels lost, adrift, an imposter in a world he doesn’t understand.”
― Nazarea Andrews, Slow Shift

“Tyler’s face is pale and blank, his body stiff, and Chase huffs. “You are allowed to be happy, Ty.” “I don’t think that’s true.” “And that’s ok,” Chase says easily, “I’ll keep believing it for you until you do.”
― Nazarea Andrews, Slow Shift

“Son,” he starts, and Chase laughs. It’s sharp and bitter and cutting, and John flinches back at it. “Now I’m your son? Now? Fuck you, Dad,” he says. John blinks, because Chase is fourteen and he sounds so tired—so tired and broken, like all the anger has drained away and he’s just been left empty. “I needed you to remember I was your son a year ago, when Mom died and I was alone, and you sent me to live with Gran for the summer instead of being there for me. I needed you to remember I was your son when I came home to an empty house, or when I started school, the freak whose mom died. Or when we were at Gran’s for Christmas and you spent all of it drunk or fucking fishing. I needed you and you weren’t there, so don’t trot that shit out now. Not when it’s convenient.”
― Nazarea Andrews, Slow Shift

“Chase grins, hiding it in his homework. He thinks there are worse things than being similar to someone Tyler loves.”
― Nazarea Andrews, Slow Shift

“Tyler always listens to him, a quiet attentiveness that reminds Chase of Lucas. Sometimes, he thinks that’s why he likes going to the house in the woods. Everyone else in his life is too busy, too impatient for his constant stream of thoughts—but Tyler isn’t. Tyler listens when he talks about nothing and seems to always hear the tiny bit of something Chase doesn’t mean to sprinkle into the babble.”
― Nazarea Andrews, Slow Shift

“It's a lonely place to be, even surrounded by people, and when he’s overwhelmed by the noise and the loneliness, he thinks of it—of the quiet house that needed a little bit of love, a family to fill it up. He misses his Dad, and Ben, and his mother, so much it aches in his gut. Missing a house he slept next to for a few hours is a bit of a surprise.”
― Nazarea Andrews, Slow Shift