6
" You're careful. Thoughtful. Perceptive. More honest than most. You hate recklessness, but are impulsive yourself, when it suits you. You hate your brother, and you love him more than anything in the world. You wish your parents would come home, but you've learned to live without them. You like peace, but are capable of toe-curling violence, if pushed far enough."
River paused, again, and his hand squeezed mine. So hard, it almost hurt. "But the thing I'm really into- the part that makes you different- is that you don't want anything from me. At all."
"I don't?"
"No. And I find it... relaxing. "
― April Genevieve Tucholke , Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (Between, #1)
7
" I pulled a black party dress and fake pearls out of a wooden trunk- very 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'- and went into the wardrobe to put the dress on. When I came out, River took one look at me and grinned. A nice, kind of 'appreciative' grin.
"You need to put your hair up," he said.
So I dug around in a small box of cheap jewelry until I had gathered a handful of bobby pins. Then River appeared behind me, and, with his long, tan fingers, started lifting my hair, one strand at a time, twirling it and pinning it until it was all piled on my head in a graceful twist. My hair was thick with dried salt from sitting on the beach, and tangled from the wind, but River made it look pretty damn elegant, all things considered. When he was done, I went over and looked at myself in one of the long dressing mirrors- it was warped and stained with age, but I could still see half my face pretty well. "
― April Genevieve Tucholke , Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (Between, #1)
9
" Do you have a frying pan? Not Teflon, I hate that stuff. Cast iron? Or stainless steel?"
I found River an old cast iron pan in the cabinet by the sink. I put it on the stove, and I imagined, for a second, Freddie, young, wearing a pearl necklace and a hat that slouched off to one side, standing over that very pan and making an omelet after a late night spent dancing those crazy, cool dances they did back in her day.
"Brilliant," River said. He lit the gas stove and threw some butter in the pan. Then he cut four pieces of the baguette, rubbed them with a clove of garlic, and tore a hole out in each. He set the bread in the butter and cracked an egg onto the bread so it filled up the hole. The yolks of the eggs were a bright orange, which, according to Sunshine's dad, meant the chickens were as happy as a blue sky when they laid them.
"Eggs in a frame," River smiled at me.
When the eggs were done, but still runny, he put them on two plates, diced a tomato into little juicy squares, and piled them on top of the bread. The tomato had been grown a few miles outside of Echo, in some peaceful person's greenhouse, and it was red as sin and ripe as the noon sun. River sprinkled some sea salt over the tomatoes, and a little olive oil, and handed me a plate.
"It's so good, River. So very, very good. Where the hell did you learn to cook?" Olive oil and tomato juice were running down my chin and I couldn't have cared less.
"Honestly? My mother was a chef." River had the half smile on his crooked mouth, sly, sly, sly. "This is sort of a bruschetta, but with a fried egg. American, by way of Italy. "
― April Genevieve Tucholke , Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (Between, #1)
10
" Shopping at the Dandelion Co-op made me feel European. Very Audrey Hepburn as Sabrina in Paris (that movie played a few weeks ago in the park). River picked out goat cheese to spread on crispy-crusted French bread for the picnic, and olives, and a jar of roasted red peppers, and a bar of seventy percent dark chocolate, and a bottle of sparkling water. He bought some things for himself too: organic whole-fat milk, another crunchy baguette, glossy espresso beans (which were roasted by Gianni's family and sold all over town), bananas, Parmigiano-Reggiano, fat brown eggs, extra-virgin olive oil, and some bulk spices.
I watched River as he shopped. Closely. I watched him breathe in deep the gorgeous roasted smell of the espresso beans before he ground them. I watched him open the egg carton and stroke the brown shells before closing it again. I watched him slip his slim fingers into the barrel of bright purple-and-white cranberry beans, unable to resist the urge, just like me. I always had to put my hands in the pretty, speckled beans. Always. "
― April Genevieve Tucholke , Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (Between, #1)
13
" River looked out the kitchen window, at the purple-black sky and the purple-black sea. "I've been having nightmares since I turned fourteen. Always. But then I took a nap with you a few days ago, and, all of a sudden, they're gone. I leave for a day, and 'boom', they come back, just like that." He paused. "You know what this means, don't you?"
I shook my head.
"It means that you're just going to have to sleep next to me, for the rest of my life. "
― April Genevieve Tucholke , Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (Between, #1)