Mare

“You don't have to pick me up," I said in a rush.
"Considering you have no idea where we're going and I have no intention of telling you, I'm quite sure that I do."
"I can meet you somewhere centrally located."
Noah sounded amused. "I promise to press my trousers before meeting your family. I'll even bring flowers for the occasion."
"Oh, God. Please don't." I said. Maybe honesty is the best policy. "My family is going to screw with my life if you come over." I knew them far too well.
"Congratulations-- you just made the prospect all the more enticing. What is your address?”
― Michelle Hodkin, The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

“You're distracting,' I said truthfully.
'I won't be. I promise,' Noah said. 'I'll get some crayons and draw quitely. Alone. In a corner.”
― Michelle Hodkin, The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

“Have you kissed many boys before?" he asked quietly.
His question brought my mind back into focus. I raised an eyebrow. "Boys? That's an assumption."
Noah laughed, the sound low and husky. "Girls, then?"
"No."
"Not many girls? Or not many boys?"
"Neither," I said. Let him make of that what he would.
"How many?"
"Why—"
"I am taking away that word. You are no longer allowed to use it. How many?"
My cheeks flushed, but my voice was steady as I answered. "One."
At this, Noah leaned in impossibly closer, the slender muscles in his forearm flexing as he bent his elbow to bring himself nearer to me, almost touching. I was heady with the proximity of him and grew legitimately concerned that my heart might explode. Maybe Noah wasn't asking. Maybe I didn't mind. I closed my eyes and felt Noah's five o' clock graze my jaw, and the faintest whisper of his lips at my ear.
"He was doing it wrong.”
― Michelle Hodkin, The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

“Noah shifted on the bed, and the oddest crunching sound came underneath him. I looked, really looked, at the bed for the first time.

"What," I asked slowly, as I eyed the animal crackers strewn all over it, "the hell?"

"You were convinced they were your pets," Noah said, not even trying to suppress his laughter. "You wouldn't let me touch them.”
― Michelle Hodkin, The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer