The approval of someone like him, who clearly cared for no one, seemed like it would be worth more.

Now Blue looked promptly judgmental, which was about two ticks off from her ordinary expression and one tick off from Ronan's.

To think you could have been dreaming the cure for cancer," Blue said. "Look, Sargent," Ronan retorted, "I was gonna dream you some eye cream last night since clearly modern medicine's doing jack shit for you, but I nearly had my ass handed to me by a death snake from the fourth circle of dream hell, so you're welcome."
Blue was appropriately touched. "Ah, thanks, man."
"No problem, bro.

Granddad said I needed to get some muscles because I was looking gay these days. No, he didn't really say that. Speaking of which, here's Parrish.' Someone cuffed the back of Adam's head. He blinked up. One way, then the other. His assailant had come up on Adam's deaf side. 'Oh,' Adam said. It was Tad Carruthers, whose worst fault was that Adam didn't like him and Tad couldn't tell. 'Oh,' mimicked Tad benevolently, as if Adam's standoffish-ness charmed him. Adam wanted desperately and masochistically for Tad to ask him where he had summered. Instead, Tad turned to where Ronan was still reclined with his eyes closed. He lifted a hand to cuff Ronan's head but lost his nerve an inch into the swing. Instead, he just drummed on Ronan's desk and moved on.

He was clearly related to Declan: same nose, same dark eyebrows, same phenomenal teeth. But there was a carefully cultivated sense of danger to this Lynch brother. This was not a rattlesnake hidden in the grass, but a deadly coral snake striped with warning colors. Everything about him was a warning: If this snake bit you, you had no one to blame but yourself.

Her name's Chainsaw," replied Ronan, without looking up. Then: "Noah. You're creepy as hell back there.