"Goddamn it." Hardy laid his arm up over his eyes, shielding the sun."Goddamn it, Eddie."
The problem was, why was he feeling now like he had to do something, anything at all, to make some sense out of this? He shouldn't have let Eddie, or Eddie and Frannie, get inside him. He hadn't seen it coming, so hadn't been prepared for it. He'd thought he'd kept them outside enough-acquaintances, not friends. Eddie was gone, and nothing was going to change that.
Still something nudged him, hurting, almost like a cramp, or a screw turning in his heart."
Chapter 3, pg. 33

" He sat at the stool behind the bar, time weighing a ton and not getting lighter. He didn't want to have that time to think. About the unaccustomed restlessness inside him. About ambition, where love had gone. Especially, he didn't want to think about the ridiculous idealist Eddie...