Home > Work > Waiting for the Flood (Spires, #2)
21 " Tonight there was something different. Something both deeper and shallower than friendship. Familiarity, perhaps, the sudden realisation that we lived our sealed-up little lives in closeness to each other. That we had something to share and something to lose. Something to protect together. "
― Alexis Hall , Waiting for the Flood (Spires, #2)
22 " We were going to end up as newspaper headlines: Pensioner and Homosexual Found Dead in River - Coincidence, Tragedy, or Satanic Ritual Gone Wrong? "
23 " It was nothing more than the instinct of sociability, but it made me realise how long it had been since I’d been smiled at by a stranger. How long since I’d had someone to smile back to. "
24 " No one could have called him handsome, and the orange waders probably didn't help - but when he smiled? Suddenly handsome didn't seem important anymore - only the things happiness could do to a man's face. "
25 " Not at all. You just have to teach people to value someone else’s access to spoons as much as they value their own.”I tried not to stare at him. How did someone like this just . . . happen? Random act of atoms? Or was there a god somewhere who, thirty years or so ago, had woken up one morning and thought, What the universe needs right now is someone to think deeply about teaspoons. "
26 " He glanced at me, smiling now. “Hot and kind and slightly mysterious. How did I get so lucky?” “Is that how you see me?” “Everyone’s mysterious before you know them.” “But w-when you know me, I won’t be mysterious anymore.” “Yeah, you’ll be you, and that’ll be better. "
27 " I needed him to stop looking at me like that. It was casual. The way he'd ook at anyone, I was sure. But it made me feel so very there. "
28 " It’s all I’ve ever wanted, really. Someone to make tea for. To know how they like to drink it, and share some pieces of time with them at the end of long days, and short ones, good days and bad, and everything in between. "
29 " To gather up the dust of my heart and scatter it again on the winds of hope. "
30 " When we'd moved in, she'd welcomed us. When Marius moved out, I sat on her floor and cried. I suppose I could have called any number of our friends, but that was the problem. They were our friends. Even now, when I see them, which isn't as often as I should, I feel less. Less than I used to be. When I was with him. "
31 " Only if you’re going to be all sensible and rational about it.” “Sorry.” He grinned, teeth bright in the gloom. “I’m an engineer; I can’t help myself.” “Why? D-do they take away your licence?” “Yes. And then I have to spend the rest of my days working out the optimum distribution of gold coins among groups of strictly hierarchical pirates. "
32 " People take their successes with them, which is absolutely the way it should be. But it does tend to leave you with the bad stuff. "
33 " You’re no more responsible for the bad stuff than the good. People make choices. "
34 " People make choices, and sometimes they just leave. And, afterwards, we gather up our hearts, pick up our lives, do the best we can with them, and see what comes. "
35 " W-when I was younger, I was scared of people only listening to . . . to how I say things, not what I say. And the more you think something like that, the harder it is to risk saying anything at all. "
36 " Valuables, my arse,” she grumbled. “I’m eighty-two, I don’t have any valuables. I’ve just got a lifetime’s worth of crap. "
37 " I think it’s beautiful,” I blurted out, with awkward passion. “The way the end of life can take you back to the beginning. I . . . I’m really looking forward to b-being a grandfather. "