Things Good Girls Don't Do by Codi Gary Read Free Book Online Page B

down.”
    Her eyes darted around frantically and she hissed, “Please leave.”
    “I thought you were hungry. I could come in and we could order a pizza?” He gave her his best innocent smile and held his hands up. “I promise I won’t try anything else.”
    “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she said, hesitating slightly.
    He was going to take that as a yes. “I think it’s a spec-fucking-tacular idea. You go inside, I’ll go get food.”
    Not giving her a chance to protest, he took off on his chopper and headed toward Hall’s Market. Hopefully he got back before cautious Katie had a chance to take the reins again.
    T HIS IS CRAZY. Absolutely certifiable. He isn’t even your type.
    Okay, so she didn’t really have a type. She had only really ever been serious with her high-school boyfriend and Jimmy. All the other dates had been setups, or men she’d known forever and didn’t want to hurt their feelings when they asked her out. Chase wasn’t like any of them, though. He did what he wanted, despite how much other people’s low opinions might bother him. She envied that.
    Her first boyfriend had been a high-school baseball player who went to the same church and her mother had adored him. He’d been cute as a bug, but nothing compared to Chase’s raw sexuality. Her mother had definitely never worried about them being alone together, even though he had been her first.
    Of course, he had left for college and broken up with her for a sorority girl named Tiffany who he’d met during pledge week, so maybe she did have a type.
    Dirty, rotten, cheating jerk faces.
    Katie could hear her mother now: Katie, if you invite a man into your home he’ll have certain expectations.
    It’s not like she had really invited Chase, he had just kind of invited himself and she hadn’t said no. So, technically, she hadn’t done anything wrong . . . yet.
    All of these thoughts rushed through Katie’s head as she paced her very neutral living room, picking up her bra off the back of the couch and cleaning up a pile of cat puke Slinks had left by the entryway. She winced as the skin of her back pulled tight and her tattoo throbbed, cursing the cat silently. Sometimes she thought he did it on purpose, just to make her life more difficult.
    As she was washing her hands, a knock made her jump and run for the door nervously while Slinks, who had been quietly munching on kibble, puffed up and ran for her bedroom with a hiss.
    “Sorry, Slinks!” She opened the door and had a grocery bag shoved into her arms. “What’s this?”
    “You said I distracted you from your evening of grocery shopping, so I picked up a few things.” Chase walked past her with two bags of his own and set them on the counter.
    She was still standing in the entryway, unsure how to proceed. “How did you get all this on the back of your bike?”
    “Whoa!” He turned to her with a dark scowl. “That is a gorgeous piece of machinery, not some tricycle. Show some respect.”
    She shut the front door and set the bag she held next to his. “You didn’t have to buy me groceries.”
    “I didn’t. You left money on the counter when I told you not to, so I used it to buy some food.” He opened up her fridge and she heard him tsking. “Geez, when you said you had no food, you weren’t kidding. Is that a Chia Pet?”
    Katie pushed past him to grab the forgotten fajitas and threw them in the trash. “I left you that money to pay for my tattoo.” The man was making her dizzy and frustrated, unloading groceries in her kitchen. Groceries he’d bought for her. It was high-handed. It was overstepping. It was . . .
    Okay, it was kind of sweet.
    Another knock sounded and she jumped. “Who in the name of Brad Paisley is that?”
    He started laughing and wheezed. “You are too much . . .”
    She walked to the front door and pulled it open. Clinton Hammond stood on her front porch with a Rico’s Pizza box and a plastic bag of plates in his hands, his