Sweet Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

years later, the first batch of cookies had cooled down enough that Mama let me have one. It was so yummy that I felt like peanut butter and chocolate were having a party in my mouth. I told Mama that and she laughed.
    “Mama,” I said as I licked the last of the chocolate off my fingertips, “I can’t wait until I’m all growed up.”
    “ Grown up,” she told me while trying a bite of her own cookie. “And why is that?”
    “Because when I’m grown up,” I told her happily, “I can marry David H. from my class. Not David C.; he’s the one who pinched me on our science-day field trip. But David H. is my friend, and he said he would marry me if I gave him my red slap band. So then I can be married and have babies, and they’ll have a mama and a daddy just like Marissa’s family. Then I can bake every single day because that’s my job, and me and David H. can eat all the cookies we want because when you’re growed up you get to be in charge of yourself. Right, Mama?”
    When I looked up at her, she had a funny expression on her face. I didn’t know what I’d said that was wrong, but I could tell something was. She seemed sad. She had to swallow a few times before she could answer me, even though she didn’t have anything in her mouth.
    “You know what I always loved most about baking?” she asked me.
    I wasn’t sure what this had to do with David H., but I was happy she didn’t have that look on her face anymore. I shrugged my shoulders so she would continue.
    “I always love how happy it makes other people to try a special treat. It makes me feel good inside when I know that they’re enjoying something I made just for them.”
    “Me too!” I said happily. “That’s why it’s gonna be my job someday.” I thought for a second and then asked, “I can do that, right? There are people whose job it is to bake things.”
    Mama reached out to run her fingers through my hair. “You,” she said with a smile, “can do anything you set your mind to.” She made a silly face that made me laugh. “Just don’t mix gummy bears and peanut butter.”

Chapter Three
    I make a hurried grab for the caramel while still holding the mixing bowl, and chocolate batter splats across the kitchen floor. I curse, happy I’m home alone because Landon would definitely screech in reaction to my using those two words together in the same sentence.
    “Girl, you have the mouth of a sailor!” my roommate calls from the entryway.
    So I’m not home alone, after all.
    I can hear her shuffling and struggling with the door, her bags, and whatever else. I look around, realizing I need to clean up ASAP. I’ve thoroughly trashed the kitchen trying out this recipe, and I’m supposed to help her come up with drinks to make that espresso tequila palatable tonight. As if that’s possible.
    She’s mumbling to herself as I pull on my mitts and slide the pan halfway out of the oven.
    “Are you wearing clothes?” she calls out accusingly.
    I drizzle another layer of caramel over the nearly finished brownies and sprinkle them with a layer of this round’s add-on.
    “Of course I’m wearing clothes. Since when do I run around here nude?” I call back. I bend over to slide the pan into the oven as I hear her walk down the hallway to the kitchen.
    “It’s not nudity I’m worried about, but your typical shocking lack of”—I’m still adjusting the brownie pan with my oven mitt when she walks into the kitchen and gasps—“pants.”
    At that same moment, I hear a decidedly masculine choking sound. I glance behind me and see Landon’s whole face turn every shade of red available in the spectrum. Her friend Taylor stands next to her, eyes wide in shock before they dart away from the sight of me bent over the oven door wearing a partially buttoned flannel and a miniscule pair of boxers I got in the preteen boy’s section. Yes, I am dressed, dressed enough to hang out with Landon and Miko, but the threadbare shorts barely cover up