Inner Harbor

“Up to this point your life has pretty much sucked. You’re not responsible for that. But you are responsible for what happens from here on.”

“He matters to me, too.""I know he does.""He didn't." Phillip pulled out his hammer to nail the laps. "Not as much as he did to you. Not enough. It's different now.""I know that, too." For the next few minutes they worked in tandem, without words. "You stood up for him anyway," Cam added when the plank was in place. "Even when he didn't matter enough.""I did it for Dad.""We all did it for Dad. Now we're doing it for Seth.”

“Phillip look into Ray's eyes. He saw compassion and hope. And he saw himself mirrored back, bleeding in a dirty gutter on a street where life was worth less than a dime bag.Sick, tired, petrified, Phillip dropped his head into his hands."What's the point?""You're the point, son." Ray ran his hand over Phillip's hair. "You're the point.”

“You belong with us," he said quietly. "Nothing's going to change that.”

“It was different with Seth," Anna went on. "Right from the first minute, everything about him pulled at me. I couldn't stop it. I tried, but I couldn't. I've thought about that, and I believe, sincerely, that my feelings for him were there, just there, even before I met him. We were meant to be part of each other's lives. He was meant to be part of this family, and this family was meant to be mine.”

“I don't want to marry her, I just want to have a nice, civilized dinner with her.""Then bounce on her," Seth finished."Christ. He gets that from you," Philip accused Cam."He came that way," Cam wrapped an arm around Seth's neck. "Didn't you, brat?"The panic didn't come now, as it used to whenever Seth was touched or held. Instead he wriggled and grinned.”

“Flowers, champagne, caviar. Do you usually come so well equipped when you break and enter?""Only when I want to apologize and throw myself on the mercy of a beautiful woman.”

“My mother said once that we were all hers already. We just hadn't found each other before.”

“It wasn't the paramedics or the surgical team that saved my life. It was Ray and Stella Quinn.”