The Nine Lives of Chloe King Read Online Free PDF Page B

purchases clutched to his chest. Apparently Lania had decided to let him pay.
    “I like your hat,” Chloe said.
    “Really? Thanks!” He took it off and looked at it, as if he was surprised she’d noticed.
    “Did your girlfriend make it?”
    He grinned. “No, I did.”
    Chloe couldn’t help being impressed. Besides Amy, almost no one she knew—not counting her mother’s trend-happy friends—knitted, and those who did never really finished anything. Except for some of the stitching, it looked pretty professional.
    “I found the pattern on the Web,” he continued. “If you knit, I’ll give you the URL.”
    “No thanks, I can’t. My friend Amy can, but I’m a complete spaz with my hands.”
    “Oh, you should totally take it up. It’s kind of fun,” he said, only a little embarrassed.
    Chloe steeled herself for the usual touchy-feely sensitive guy discourse that was sure to follow, about how the movements were soothing, about how he felt in touch with people from long ago, about how some native culture or other did something spiritual with knitting needles, how he might want to open a shop someday, how it was good for teaching underprivileged kids self-esteem. …
    But he had already turned to go.
    “Well, see you,” he said with a cute little half smile as he reached for the door. His eyes crinkled the upper part of his cheek, the skin pulled taut by a sexy scar that ran from the outside of his eye to just below his cheekbone.
    Chloe waved and watched him go. Part of her was a little insulted; was she not a hot young girl who had attracted the notice of two hot guys in the last twenty-four hours? And Mr. Kitty Cat Man didn’t even care. It was her birthday, for Christ’s sake. Before her imminent grounding, didn’t fate owe her something?
    Then her butt vibrated.
    She had to carefully dig her phone out of the back pocket of her own vintage jeans, which were men’s and had a pre-worn white rectangle in the back where someone had once carried his wallet. Once in, her phone fit fine. Getting it out when she was any position but vertical was almost impossible.
    Text message: carluccis @ 7— a.
    Carlucci’s was the place she and Amy had first met when the Scotkins had moved into the neighborhood. Maybe she’d get some decent pizza today after all. The best part of her job was that Pateena paid her in cash under the counter at the end of every day. She’d have a whole twenty to blow on a Make Me One with Everything pie.
    The rest of the afternoon passed without incident, except when Chloe had to hide a pair of faded purple velvet pants she just knew Amy would love. Usually the owner didn’t have a problem with employees “saving” items for themselves. Marisol was the coolest boss she’d ever had. She even let Chloe use the shop’s machine to hem her own jeans and stuff. But if Lania saw the pants—or liked them herself—she was bound to make trouble. Chloe stashed them under a pile of polyester bowling shirts when she left.
    As she approached the restaurant in the damp fog, the windows of Carlucci’s glowed like they were lit with gas carriage lanterns, a restaurant out of time. Really, it was just a little Italian pasta place with candles set in old Chianti bottles like every other little Italian pasta place in the world, but it was hers and Amy’s, and it was cozy, and sometimes the insane old owner even remembered them.
    When she opened the door, there seemed to be even more candles than usual.
    “Happy birthday to you …,” Amy sang, wisely giving up after one cracked phrase. Her eager face was lit manically by the glow of seventeen candles around the crust of a Make Me One with Everything pie. “Blow quickly,” she added. “Carlucci thinks I’m going to burn the place down.”
    Chloe laughed with delight, something she couldn’t remember doing for days. She took a deep breath.
    I wish …
    I wish …
    It used to come to her easily: world peace, an end to all of the environmental