Free The Nine Lives of Chloe King by Liz Braswell Page A

allergic.”
    “I have four cats,” he said smugly, watching her envy. “Tabitha, Sebastian, Sabrina, and Agatha.”
    “Four?”
    “Oh, that’s nothing. When I was little, we had …” But his brow furrowed, and he looked away distractedly.
    “When you were little … ?” Chloe prompted him.
    “We had a lot. Of pets,” he finished lamely. “Lots of cats. Rare breeds, too, like Cornish rex and Maine coon.”
    They wandered the paths randomly. Chloe loved seeing the zoo like this, for free, with no pressure to see all of the top animals, to see every square inch before it was time to go. They could pause as long as they wanted to watch a pair of simple mallard ducks that wandered into the aviary and skip the exhibits they didn’t care about without feeling guilty.
    But Brian was much quieter than before, except when he was pointing out interesting factoids and habits of the various animals they saw. He chewed the inside of his lip when he thought she wasn’t looking, as if trying to decide whether or not to say more.
    “So you had lots of pets when you were young?” Chloe prompted when they stopped to get her a diet Coke in a plastic monkey-shaped cup. He ordered one of those cappuccinos from a machine, something Chloe wouldn’t have done if she were starving.
    “Yeah, uh …” Brian’s face fell, completely losing the animation it had when he was talking about the meerkats and the cassowaries. “My mom’s dead,” he finally said. “And my dad and me—we don’t really get along. He’s got this apartment he keeps here in the city—where I live, for now—but he does a lot of work out of his other house in Sausalito. We don’t talk much.”
    He shook his head. “But that’s way too much information for a first date. You probably just want to make sure I’m not some kind of freak.”
    Chloe laughed. “I have a secret mouse,” she volunteered, lightening the mood.
    “What?”
    “A secret mouse. His name is Mus-mus. From the Latin name for mouse, you know? Mus musculus. My mom doesn’t know I keep him in a drawer of my bureau.”
    “You keep a mouse? In your bureau?”
    “Yeah,” she said a little defensively. “Mom wouldn’t let me otherwise.”
    “That’s so … cute.” He looked at her in wonder, as if that was the most charming thing anyone had ever said. They wandered out of the concession area, Chloe sucking noisily on the straw that impaled the monkey’s head. A sign pointed to penguins, otters, and lions.
    “Hey …,” Chloe said, remembering bits of the dream she’d had after she fell off the tower. “Let’s go see the lions. I … dreamt about some recently. …”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah.” She looked down as they walked, trying to match her stride to his, but Brian’s legs were much longer. “My dad’s gone, too,” she said. “And my mom’s kind of a bitch.”
    “Everyone’s mom is a bitch when you’re sixteen.” He laughed. “I just would have liked to have known mine.”
    “How did you know I was sixteen?” Chloe asked, suddenly suspicious.
    “I didn’t.” He shrugged. “It was more of a general comment. Not you in particular, but when ’you’re’ sixteen, meaning everyone.”
    He took the tiniest sip from his cappuccino but still managed to get a foamy mustache.
    “The day after I turned sixteen, I almost punched my dad out,” Brian continued. He straightened up and looked her in the eye, daring her to disbelieve him.
    “That would be so much more effective if you didn’t have milk all over your lip,” she said, laughing. She reached over with a napkin and carefully wiped it off, trying not to drag it across his mouth too hard. She was doubly glad she had a manicure: it made the gesture twice as sexy. Denim dust under the nails would not have been attractive.
    He blushed, and his hand went through his hair, dislodging a lock that made a Superman-style curl in the middle of his forehead. With glasses and a dye job, he’d make a very passable