The Nine Lives of Chloe King by Liz Braswell Read Free Book Online

Chloe suddenly realized she was admiring Paul’s looks. Good ol’ Paul, with the harelip scar that tugged his mouth when he smiled. Kind of endearing, really …
    Chloe shook herself.
    “So what’s been going on?” she asked quickly.
    “Between you almost dying and Amy? Not a whole lot.” He looked at her with faint amusement in his dark brown eyes. Chloe felt her palms sweat. It was a small room, secluded from the rest of the high school; their aloneness was a very palpable third presence in the room with them.
    It’s just because Amy likes him, she told herself. A competition thing. In the still air of the room she could just smell the deodorant and soap he used and underneath, a saltiness that she realized was probably his skin. The way he was sitting there, it would be so easy just to walk over and push herself against him; they would be the same height. She could wrap her arms around his neck like she had with Xavier and pull him in—
    “Robble robble, blah blah blah—hey, King, you listening?”
    “Yes!” She leapt up, trying to shake off the desire. “No. I mean, I gotta go. I, uh, forgot to hand in my essay to Mingrone—shit, I hope he hasn’t left yet.”
    She grabbed her bag and made for the door.
    “I think he said we have until tomorrow,” Paul called after her. The door slammed between them.
    I will be cool.
    Yeah, right.
    At work Chloe forced herself to seriously look over every guy who came in. Including a few who were gay. Things were very bad indeed when she found herself almost kissing her best friend. Who seemed to be her other best friend’s boyfriend.
    Marisol didn’t help anything by putting the Eurythmics’ “I Need a Man” on the shop speakers. Chloe jumped guiltily when she heard the chorus.
    “Is it that obvious?”
    “Honey, you’re dripping hormones all over my nice clean floor.” The older woman smiled at her. Chloe wished her mom was more like her manager. She always seemed to understand Chloe’s moods immediately and unless there was a sale coming up, was often ready to talk and listen.
    “Who put on this old shit?” Lania screamed from the shoe section, hands over her ears in horror.
    Chloe and Marisol exchanged “what can you do” looks. “Go get yourself a boy, girl. You’re not concentrating; it’s obvious your attention is elsewhere,” Marisol said in a lighthearted voice.
    As Chloe patiently ripped through the hem seams of more jeans, she reflected on what her boss had said. Maybe she could get it “out of her system.” Maybe she was due for a nice boyfriend.
    Or a visit to Xavier.
    Once Chloe had found the right street, she pulled the crumpled card out of her back pocket. I’m going to have to get better at this. She imagined herself in a business suit, somewhere in a steel-and-glass future, shaking someone’s hand and pulling out her own card, all rumpled and greasy. She checked the address against the building. Xavier must have had a little money or have been crashing with a friend who did: it was a nice old house, three floors, dark wood and bay windows on a street with soft green trees and no traffic. Of course, both sides of the street were stuffed with parked cars—rich neighborhood or not, this was still San Francisco.
    The front door was propped open and there was a hand-scrawled note to FedEx posted over the buzzer. The lobby smelled of lemon wood cleaner. There was only one apartment per floor; Xavier had the attic. With gables. Chloe had always dreamed of living in a real old house like this instead of her bug-ugly vinyl-sided ranch. She climbed the stairs, letting her hand trail along the smoothly polished rail.
    But in the half-light of the stairwell Chloe began to question what she was doing: going to some foreign older guy’s apartment by herself at twilight without anyone knowing where she was. He could turn out to be anything: a rapist or murderer. A vampire, even.
    She paused briefly, but an image of herself kissing Paul pushed