by Bethany-Kris
Dina raised an eyebrow, as though she were daring Catherine to confirm what she was asking. “I mean, three weeks ago, people saw you two leaving a party together. Everybody knows he hurt Derik over you. I was just curious.”
“Why?”
And why is it any of your business?
“Because it’s kind of hard to tell,” Dina said, looking as though she were more interested in her manicure than their current conversation. “Sometimes he talks to you, sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he’s around you, sometimes he isn’t. Are you just, like, good enough to fuck but not for anything else? Because shit, Derik said you wouldn’t even put out. I wondered, that’s all.”
“Oh, and,” Dina added, jerking a thumb over her shoulder, “Jules wants to know because she’s interested in him, you know.”
Jealousy burned hot through Catherine’s gut.
She pushed the feeling down.
Or, tried.
It didn’t really work.
Catherine’s gaze snapped to the girl Dina mentioned, but she was another one that seemed more interested in staring anywhere but at her.
“Well?” Dina asked when Catherine stayed quiet.
By the time Catherine was ready to respond, she simply stood up and packed away her books into a messenger bag. She slung the bag over her shoulder, done with this whole show. Dina was only bothering her because she could. The girl was pissed off that she lost her status as Cross’s whatever, and because Catherine seemed like an easy target.
Catherine was not going to stand around and take the hits because of it.
“Ask Cross,” Catherine said, shrugging. “If you really want to know, ask him.”
She let that be good enough, though there was a whole lot more she wanted to say. There was a whole lot more she could say.
It wouldn’t do her any good, though.
Problem was, even as Catherine walked away, the jealousy still burned and it only pissed her off more. Truth was, she didn’t know what she and Cross actually were. Dina had been right—sometimes it might look like they were something, and other times, it probably didn’t look like that at all.
She could keep Cross on a text message conversation for hours, but only got a smile as he passed her in the hallways some days.
To Catherine, that meant a lot of things.
Mostly that they weren’t dating, a couple, or anything else. It hadn’t exactly bothered Catherine up until that moment when someone else felt the need to bring it up.
Speak of a dark-eyed devil, and he shall appear.
Cross came around the corner just as Catherine stopped at her locker. She opened the locker with a bit more force than she usually would, and didn’t even bother to look at Cross as he passed with his friends.
Except … he didn’t pass.
She felt his presence behind her, and then two of his fingers grazed the back of her inner wrist. “What’s wrong?”
“You tell me.” Catherine shoved her books into the locker, and pulled out the ones she needed for her next class. “Or better yet, go talk to Dina and her band of merry bitches. They’ve got lots of questions to ask today.”
Cross let out a heavy exhale. “Catty—”
Catherine might not have reacted so strongly had he not used that damn nickname and made her think why he gave it to her.
She spun on her heel, letting her bag fall to the floor with a thud. “Are you seeing other girls at all? Anyone, Cross. Are you?”
“What?”
“My question was not difficult to understand. You could try to answer it.”
His handsome features turned as still as stone, and his gaze locked on hers. “Why are you asking that to begin with?”
“Because I kind of want to know. Because I have no idea what we’re doing, or what we are. Because I asked, and you could have enough decency to let me know. Because if you are, then I get a choice in what I want to do or not do where you’re concerned.”
“Hey, relax.”
“Because I don’t want to be one of many you get on your knees for,” Catherine whispered harshly. “That’s why, so now you can answer. Go for it.”
Students blew by them in the hallway. A couple of his friends stood a few feet back, waiting for him to finish his conversation.
Cross didn’t move a muscle. “Shit, all you have to do is ask, Catherine. About whatever—us, females, or anything. I can’t answer fuck all when you don’t open your mouth to let me know a question is rattling around in your head.”
Well, then …
“I did ask. Now. Answer.”
“Come with me for a second,” he said.
Catherine barely had time to close her locker and grab her bag, before Cross’s hand grasped tightly to her wrist, and she was following behind him in the hallway. She wasn’t even sure if his friends had followed them or not, but before she could check, he pulled her into a classroom and kicked the door closed.
She tugged her wrist out of his grasp. “What the hell, Cross?”
“If you’ve got shit to ask, come to me. If you want something, come to me.”
“I did.”
“Yeah, after someone pissed you off, Catherine. I don’t have time for petty girls; I got enough of that elsewhere, but thanks. The last thing I’m ever going to waste my time on is someone who makes a fucking show of themselves or me. I’m just not going to do it.”
Catherine blinked, hurt. “I’m—”
“Not other girls, right? Not like them, yeah?” Cross shrugged. “Then try not to let the fact they don’t know about us, or that they’ve got their own issues to deal with put you into some kind of fit with me.”
“Don’t turn this into something else,” Catherine muttered, refusing to meet his gaze. It was never good for her when she stared at Cross for too long—she went stupid in her head and heart. She needed to think. “What are we even doing? I don’t even know what we’re doing, or what you’re doing, and that’s not fair.”
Wordlessly, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it over. “Here.”
Catherine stared at the device, not reaching for it. “What am I supposed to do with that?”
“Forty-Seven, Ninety-Two, that’s the passcode. Have a look, Catty.”
“You want me to look through your phone?”
“No, you do. But I don’t give a shit either way. Have at it.” Cross pushed the phone into her hand, forcing her to take it. “I’m not ever going to act like half of the other idiots at this goddamn school, so I can’t help if I don’t fit what they consider to be a boyfriend. I’m not going to be all over you or acting like a fool so that everyone else knows what’s up with me and you. It isn’t their business to begin with, or for them to talk about when my back is turned.”
Cross shrugged, adding, “I wasn’t raised to behave that way with women, anyway, like you’re some trophy I won to make someone else jealous of what I have. That’s ridiculous. I took enough shit from Dina over this kind of thing, about making a scene and being some kind of spectacle for people to watch. I’m not a reality show turned on live—that’s never going to happen. I am not going to do it with you, or any other female. It’s not because you’re not worth it. It’s because you’re worth more than that kind of garbage.”
Catherine sucked in a sharp breath, whispering, “Okay.”
“I’m not even with you like I was with her, for what that’s worth,” he said quieter. “I was with her for one thing, and she knew what that was. If that’s all I wanted from you, too, the last thing you would even get is a conversation like this one right here. She wanted something different, and now she’s pissed she’s not getting that or anything. Don’t mind her, she doesn’t matter. If you want a label, then speak the hell up and let me know. I’m not much for that nonsense, but shit, whatever you need, Catherine. I mean, if that label is going to make a difference to how you and I deal with this sort of shit in the future, then stick it on. All right?”
Catherine didn’t get the chance t
o reply.
Cross pulled open the classroom door, and passed her by to leave. “Keep the stupid phone, take all the time you need with it, but I can tell you what you’re going to find, babe. Fuck all.”
The door slammed behind him hard enough for the glass window to rattle. Catherine didn’t move an inch, and held tighter to the phone in her hand. She stared at the device for a long time, repeating the passcode to herself again and again.
She could look.
She could save herself a hell of a lot of trouble and heartache, especially if she found messages or something in the phone from other girls that said Cross was seeing other people. She could also look and finally get a bit of peace that she was the only person he was seeing in any sort of way.
Catherine chose to do something else. Leaving the classroom, she resituated her bag over her shoulder and headed back down the hallway and around the corner. She found Cross leaning against her locker, in full conversation with his friends he had left behind. He didn’t stop his chat, but his gaze skipped over her, and he stepped to the side a little to let her in to her locker.
She handed his phone back over and opened her locker up just to make sure she hadn’t forgotten something the last time.
His arm came up to hug her around the neck; his hand tangled into her hair, his fingers weaving through the strands as he pulled her close enough to kiss the side of her temple. It was one of the few times he had ever kissed her at school while they attended the upper Academy together—the only time he had kissed her with someone close enough to see.
She quickly realized that even as he was doing something that he said he didn’t like to do, or wouldn’t do at all, he was doing it in a way that others did not. A sweeter way, a way that was far more to Cross’s personality and even hers. He held her there just like that with his fingers in her hair and her entire side pressed against him until her eyelids fluttered closed and the lingering tension released.
Cross must have felt it as he smiled against her skin. His voice was quiet when he spoke; too low for someone else nearby to hear his words. “You good?”
“I am now.” Catherine swallowed hard. “I didn’t look in your phone.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“How?”
“Because you didn’t really need to, babe. I think you already knew that, too.”
Guess who has a very big house all to themselves this weekend?
Catherine’s text scrolled across the screen of Cross’s phone. The single sentence promised a whole lot of fun without saying very much at all.
“What the fuck are you smirking about over there?” Zeke asked.
Cross ignored his friend, typing back to Catherine, Why?
Mom and Dad took Michel to Detroit to look at housing for when he moves there in the summer for school in Ann Arbor. Won’t be back until Sunday night.
You should throw a party, Cross messaged.
His phone started ringing not thirty seconds later. He picked up Catherine’s call, and turned his shoulder to Zeke. Familiar streets and buildings stared back at him out the passenger side window as they drove to the heart of Hell’s Kitchen.
“I did not let you know I had the house to myself for you to say I should have a party,” Catherine muttered unhappily the second Cross picked up. “I don’t want to throw a party.”
“I can hear how hard you’re pouting right now, Catty.”
“Well!”
“And now you’re whining.”
“I am not, Cross”
She so was.
Cross laughed under his breath. “No?”
“You’re under some sort of impression I could get away with throwing a party; I couldn’t.”
“But you think you could get away with having me there?” Cross asked.
“No, but I do think I can shut off the outside cameras when you get here. You could come in through the back property where my enforcer can’t see, and why not?”
“You’re going to get me killed. You realize that, right? Your father would kill me, Catherine. And then my step-father would somehow make sure I was bought back to life, so he could get the pleasure of killing me, too. Is that what you want?”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Catherine replied blithely.
“No, no I am really not.”
But he also wasn’t too keen on saying no.
Cross was walking a very fine line.
“You know what, no, I’m more worried about your father than mine,” Cross added after a moment. “He doesn’t like me. He never has, and this would give him every excuse to get rid of me.”
By killing my stupid ass.
“Yes, if he knows, but he won’t. See, fun weekend, no killing, and everyone is winning.”
“Catherine, be serious,” Cross said.
“I am. Come over … soon, today … now.”
Cross had a problem.
It was a serious issue.
He didn’t know how to tell Catherine Marcello, no. That, or he didn’t want to. Maybe it was that he simply couldn’t. Either way, it all left him screwed in the best possible way.
Any other girl, he would have brushed them off and did his own thing. No one got to make demands of him, but especially not a female. Except Catherine, it seemed. She wanted something, he did it or gave it. Whatever she needed, he made sure she had it.
Cross had thought it might become easier to refuse Catherine as time went on, but that was not the case. Two months into their craziness, and she only wrapped him tighter around her pinky with a smile.
Part of him didn’t mind all that much.
Most of him didn’t mind at all.
“So?” Catherine pressed into the phone.
Cross scrubbed a hand down his face. “You know you had me at your house being empty, right?”
“Yep.”
“You know your father will literally kill me if he finds out I was there when he wasn’t?”
“Yep.”
“Catherine,” Cross stressed.
“Except he won’t find out, so … I’ll see you in, like, two hours?”
Cross glanced at the dashboard clock on the Camaro. “Something like that, maybe more. I’ll let you know when I get around the back of your place.”
“Okay!”
Her sweet laughter rang in his ear long after she had hung up. He shoved his phone back in his pocket, and grinned to himself.
The very rational part of Cross’s brain knew this was a very bad idea.
The part he considered to be the smarter bit didn’t give a shit.
“Catherine,” Zeke said from the driver’s seat, “as in the same Catherine you were seeing when you were like fifteen?”
“What about it?”
“Marcello, right?”
“Again, what—”
“Tell me you’re not heading over there.”
“Okay, so I won’t tell you I’m heading over there for the weekend.”
At nineteen, Cross figured Zeke would have gone his own way, considering his friend had never been very interested in the family business, and did his own thing in life. It seemed like all that changed when Zeke graduated and suddenly had choices. It also meant Cross spent a lot less time as friends with Zeke, and more time under Wolf’s thumb being mentored.
“You are dumb,” Zeke said, drawing out the word, “like capital fucking D kind of dumb, Cross. Dante Marcello is going to enjoy killing your dumb ass when he finds out you shacked up with his fifteen-year-old daughter all weekend while he was gone. I will remember to let you know I told you so at your funeral, by the way.”
“She’s almost sixteen, now,” Cross said.
“That is not the important part of what I just said, you goddamn idiot.”
Cross shrugged.
Zeke shook his head. “You know what, nah, you go get your stupid ass shot. She better be worth that kind of trouble, Cross.”
“She definitely is.”
“I’ll take your word for it, but the fear woul
d be enough to keep me from even getting hard.”
“Nobody said I was fucking her,” Cross pointed out. “You assumed.”
Zeke nodded once. “Then you are dumb because you are seriously drawing the short stick here, man. You’re not even getting laid for this.”
“Don’t need to.”
“The very least you could do is get a taste of the thing that’s about to put you six feet under,” Zeke muttered to himself.
“Never said I didn’t get a taste. I said I wasn’t fucking her, and that’s none of your business to begin with.”
With that, Cross climbed out of the Camaro and slammed the door behind him. Zeke got out of the vehicle right after, laid his arms on the roof, and stared at Cross, silently stewing.
“What the hell do you want to say now?” he asked his friend.
“Pretty sure you’re supposed to be shadowing Dad all weekend. Calisto is trying to keep you under control, remember?”
Yeah, shit.
So much for that.
“About that,” Cross said.
Zeke raised is brow. “I ain’t helping you to get killed.”
“Nobody said you had to help. You could just look away later when I snatch your Camaro keys, or something.”
“You don’t have your license. You have a permit and a few weeks left before you get your license.”
“Doesn’t stop you from asking me to drive when you’re drunk and need a ride home, man.”
“Yeah, because you have a licensed driver in the car, and you have your permit.”
“Didn’t stop you before I had my permit.”
Zeke sighed. “Please don’t drag me into your stupid mess, Cross. I don’t want to get my ass killed because you’ve got your dick in a knot over that Marcello girl.”
“She has a name.”
“Yes, and when I use it, the more I feel like I’m summoning her insane fucking father.”
Cross made a noise under his breath. “Dante isn’t so bad—it’s just me that he hates.”
“I wonder why,” Zeke said, the sarcasm oozing.
“So, I’ll snatch the keys, and you’ll look away, right?” Cross asked, turning on his heels and heading for the pizza joint where Wolf was waiting for them.