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 would 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.
“I fucking hate you.”
“You’ll make an excuse to Wolf, too.”
“Eat shit, Cross.”
“You don’t know a damn thing about where I’m at this weekend, either,” Cross said, yanking open the pizza joint’s door. “Just keep your mouth shut.”
Zeke scowled as he walked inside the business. “I don’t even know how you haven’t already gotten yourself killed yet.”
“Yeah, me either.”
Cross wasn’t even joking.
“There better not be one single scratch on my car when you bring it back. You get caught by the cops, you say you stole it,” Zeke said under his breath at the sight of his father. “Because that’s what I’m telling Dad and Calisto when they ask where you went. Plausible deniability for me.”
Cross didn’t mind that. It wasn’t like it was out of character for him.
“Deal.”
Catherine opened the backdoor to the Marcello home with a sly grin. Cross slipped inside, dropped a kiss to her forehead, and kicked the door closed behind him.
“Hey,” she whispered.
“Hey, Catty,” he murmured against her skin.
“God, you’re never going to drop that nickname, are you?”
“Nope.”
She shook her head. “You know they call my mom by Cat, right? I’ve managed to avoid being her little shadow for this long, and you’re going to ruin it once one person in my family hears you use that nickname.”
“I’ll be careful with it, then.”
Catherine didn’t look like she believed him. “You hungry?”
“I could eat.”
Wolf didn’t stay at the restaurant long enough for Cross to eat. He got stuck with Wolf and Zeke until damn near supper time before he had been able to grab the keys for the Camaro and head out when their backs were turned. He was positive Wolf was pissed, considering his phone hadn’t stopped ringing. He knew for sure his step-father was pissed because most of the calls came from Calisto.
Cross sent out a text that he was fine; it was all he would do.
“Want pizza?” Catherine asked.
“Depends on where you’re ordering from,” he said honestly. “Not everybody can make a good pizza.”
Catherine scowled. “I’m cooking it, actually.”
“Like dough and all?”
“From scratch,” she confirmed.
Cross kissed her again. “Even better.”
“Smooth save. Come on, I just put it in.” Catherine hooked her pinky finger around Cross’s, and tugged him along until they entered the large kitchen. She only let go of him to check the stove, and then she was right back in front of him, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him properly. “For the record, the only acceptable response when you eat my pizza is that it’s very, very good. Understood?”
He smiled against her mouth. “Got it.”
Catherine winked, and headed for the island that was dusted with flour. He didn’t even see the cloud of flour she blew his way until it was too late. Her laugh echoed in the quiet kitchen as she dodged out of his grasp when he lunged for her.
“You have flour in your hair,” she crowed.
Cross’s gaze narrowed when Catherine continued to avoid him. Instead of just grabbing a bit of flour from the island like she had, he pulled out a handful from the opened bag on the counter. Catherine tried to dodge the white cloud, and failed miserably. The flour covered her hair, face, and all down the front of her dress.
“Cross!”
“You started this,” he said as Catherine headed for the bag of flour. “You can stop right now; take that warning, babe, before this turns into something you can’t handle.”
Catherine gave him the finger; all pretty-faced, grinning lips, and daring eyes. “Try me.”
What ensued her words could only be described as a hurricane of flour. The kitchen looked to be destroyed by the time the two stopped flinging the white powder back and forth at one another. Catherine laughed as she tried shaking her hair to get the flour out.
Cross just wished he’d taken his damn leather jacket off.
“This was … not a good idea,” he mumbled.
And his mouth tasted like flour.
Catherine, with flour on her eyelashes, poked him hard in the chest and faux glared. “It’s only a draw because I ran out of flour.”
Cross nodded with fake enthusiasm. “Yeah, that’s why it’s a draw. I need a damn shower—”
“Oh, crap.”
Catherine was already heading out of the kitchen before Cross could ask her what was up. She left a flour trail in her wake, and that only made him start laughing again.
“Where are you going?”
“Just watch the stove for me. I forgot to turn the outside cameras back on.”
Ah.
Well, Cross could do that.
He shrugged off his flour-covered jacket, and his shirt underneath because it too was a mess. Setting the items on one of the kitchen chairs, he turned just in time to see a black Mercedes pull up the Marcello drive.
“Shit.”
Cross didn’t know who that car belonged to, but he was pretty sure whoever it was would not appreciate seeing him there.
“Catherine!”
She didn’t answer his call.
Cross panicked.
“Catherine!”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
He didn’t wait to see who was getting out of the car, simply grabbed his things off the chair, and bolted for the closest door he could find. Which just locked him in a goddamn pantry.
The universe was laughing at his dumb ass.
Laughing.
“Catherine!”
Cross took one giant step back from the pantry door, and turned into a human statue at the older, male voice coming from inside the kitchen.
Zeke was right.
He was going to die.
“Uncle Giovanni,” Catherine said, her voice faint.
“What the fuck happened in this kitchen, Catherine?”
Somehow, Catherine’s laughter didn’t come off as nervous at all.
“Some kind of bug was flying when I was trying to clean up,” she said, never missing a beat, “and then I tripped with the flour bag and yeah, a mess happened.”
“Uh … all right. Do you need help cleaning—”
“No, it’s okay, Uncle Gio.”
“Dante wanted me to check on you tonight, make sure you’re good. He said you might want to go over to Liliana’s if you were bored.”
“I’m good,” Catherine said.
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
“Make sure you get this cleaned up before your mother gets home Sunday night,” Giovanni warned with a laugh. “You know how she is about a mess. Jesus, if she saw this, you’d put her OCD into a tailspin.”
“I will.”
Cross swore he didn’t breathe or move a muscle for several minutes. He listened to footsteps fade away, and voices get fainter. He wasn’t sure how long he was inside the pantry, but he didn’t even hear Catherine approach until the door opened and light streamed in.
Another cloud of flour blew in his face.
Cross sighed.
Catherine laughed.
“Sorry, not sorry,” she said sweetly. “That’s for the nickname.”
He took one step forward, dropping his jacket and shirt, and she spun on her heel and bolted away from him.
Cross didn’t even think about it; he chased after her. He should have asked about her uncle, or if the guy was coming back. He should have asked if they had to worry about another surprise guest showing up, but he didn’t care about any of that at all.
Not when Catherine ran ahead of him, and she tugged her dress up over her head. Cross was close enough to grab the item before it could hit the floor, but Catherine didn’t slow. Neither did he.
Catherine knew the bottom floor of her home far better than he did, obviously, and she was fast as hell running through it. Cross didn’t even see the double doors coming until Catherine pushed through them.
“What—”
The smell of chlorine hit him a second before Catherine jumped. She disappeared under sparkling blue water. Cross had his pants off before she had even popped back up. Her head just broke the surface of the pool when he jumped in behind her.
Cross came up to the surface with Catherine’s hands already finding his face and pulling him closer. Closer was always better with her. Her laughter was a musical echo in the space.
“Still going to need a shower,” he said.
Catherine hugged tight to his neck as he moved them to shallow water. “Yeah, yeah. I still won, loser.”
“Funny, Catty. Also, the pizza.”
“It’s good for another thirty minutes.”
Cross leaned against the edge of the pool, while Catherine floated out to his front. Her fingers danced on his bare chest before she leaned in to find his mouth with hers. The sweet kiss didn’t stay that way for long, and he swore this was becoming an all too familiar dance for them. He certainly didn’t mind.
Definitely not when her hands slipped under the water and beneath his boxer-briefs. Her fingers danced along his length, then, already finding him hard as she circled him tightly in her palms. Of course, he was hard. She was in nothing but lace panties and the matching bra, soaking wet and touching him.
Damn right he was hard.
“Show me what you like,” Catherine whispered against his lips
Fuck, yes.
“You’re seriously going to do that right now?” Cross asked.
Catherine giggled, but stayed firmly on her stomach, refusing to roll over on the bed. “I have to; I have an essay due on Monday.”
She continued reading the paperback copy of Romeo and Juliet. Cross decided to continue trying to distract her by kissing a path up her spine while his fingers edged along the waistline of her boy shorts.
“Are my clothes dried yet?”
“No, the machine will beep, and be quiet.”
Cross kissed the back of her neck.
“Stop that,” Catherine half-heartedly muttered.
He sighed, and rolled off her to his back on the bed. “They die, Catherine. That’s what happens. They’re stupid, and they die. Spoiler alert, babe.”
Catherine glowered at him. “First of all, you’re supposed to tell me a spoiler is coming before you give the spoiler. Never watching shit with you because clearly you don’t respect the spoiler alert, Cross.”
He just shrugged.
“Secondly,” she continued, “I know they die. That does not make them stupid. They died together. It was the only option in the end. I think that’s—”
Cross quickly rolled over and came close enough to Catherine that their faces were just centimeters apart. “If you say that’s romantic, I’m burning that damn book.”
“It’s the school’s book, so go for it.”
He didn’t miss how she didn’t say it was romantic, though.
“It wasn’t their only option. It was the shit option they put themselves into because they weren’t smart enough to figure out a way to be together and stay alive,” Cross said.
“That’s—”
“Fact,” he interjected.
“You better stop interrupting me.”
Cross smirked. “Or what?”
Catherine smacked him in the forehead with the book. “Or that. And it does not make them stupid, Cross.”
“Okay, maybe stupid was a bad word choice.”
“Try again, then.”
Cross rested his arms behind his head as a makeshift pillow. Although, Catherine’s bed had more than a half of a dozen decorative pillows to use. He didn’t understand why she needed that many pillows, but whatever.
“It’s not romantic to die together because that’s the only option,” he said quietly, “that’s sad. It’s fucking sad. You don’t give up, not on anything, not on anyone worth having. You just don’t give up—ever. You figure shit out. You fight. Or you take a step away and come back at it when you’re ready to, but you don’t roll over and die. So no, it’s not romantic, it’s just sad. That’s the end of it.”
Catherine stared at him for a long while before she said, “This is supposed to be one of the greatest love stories ever written.”
“Yeah, well, I prefer my love alive and well, not cold and dead.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re kind of terrible. You totally just ruined Romeo and Juliet for me.”
“As long as you never call it romantic again.”
“I didn’t say that in the first place.”
Cross side-eyed her. “You were going to.”
“Now you’ll never know, you arrogant prick. You shouldn’t have interrupted me.”
His laughter shook the bed, and Catherine smiled. She went back to reading her book, and he let her, for the moment.
“You know,” he said after a while, “I kind of love you, Catherine.”
She stilled beside him. “Kind of?”
“I do.”
“I know.” Her smile was back, but it was softer. “What’s that feel like?”
“Like nothing else,” he admitted. “Tight in my chest and warm in my blood. Like it’s better when you’re around, but perfect when you’re close enough to touch. Terrifying because I’m way too open, and that’s crazy.”
“Love me, huh?”
“I think I always have, Catherine.”
It sure felt that way.
“I probably always will,” he added.
She snuck closer to him on the bed; her soft lips kissed his arm, and her green eyes watched him from under dark lashes. “Promise?”
“Always.”
“I love you, too.”
Fast as a blink, Cross rolled over and took Catherine with him. Her book fell from her hands, but she didn’t seem to mind anymore. She was kissing him then, all lips and teeth and tongue waring with his, while her hands skipping between their bodies.
His hands were already there, too.
Slipping into her panties.
Stroking and circling and pressing and getting her to make noise again.
Beautiful noise.
God, he loved her noise.
Calisto was waiting for Cross at the front door when he walked inside the Donati home on Sunday afternoon. He wasn’t surprised, nor did his step-father’s solemn expression concern him all that much.
“You worried your mother to death,” Calisto said.
“I texted her and you. Twice. I said I was fine.”
“You’re seventeen. You don’t get to just take off for two days, Cross.”
“I was fine,” he repeated, kicking off his shoes and removing his coat. “What, do you want to try and ground me, tell me I can’t pick up soccer in the spring, or keep my spot on the football team, too, when the season rolls back around? Take the Rover keys, I can’t drive it until I finish my hours anyway. Tell me to stay in the house, or in my room, what difference is it going to make?”
“That’s the whole problem,” Calisto said in a sigh, “it won’t make a difference.”
“So we’ve got that figured out then.”
Cross walked on past his step-father, ready for a nap.
“You need to speak with your mother—apologize for worrying her.”
“Fine.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed one of these days,” Calisto said behind him.
“As long as I die doing something that I love, seems worth it.”
“Things like Catherine Marcello?”
Cross’s shoulders tensed, and he stopped walking away. “Pardon?”
“You know Wolf has a GPS on Zeke’s car, right? I know exactly where you were all weekend, Cross.”
He turned to face his step-father. “It’s Zeke’s car.”
“That Wolf bought. Although, he only reactivated the GPS when Zeke said you snatched the keys and left.”
“Why didn’t you come get me, then, if you knew where I was?”
“Seems you need to learn these lessons on your own,” Calisto murmured, “because nothing I say or do is getting through, son.”
Cross lifted his arms wide, and smirked. “Here I am, perfectly fine.”
“This time, sure. Next time, though …” Calisto shook his head, adding, “You can act beyond your age all you want. You can behave as a grown man would all you want, but you’re still not, Cross. But when you choose the behavior of an adult, you’re going to deal with adult consequences when you’re caught. I hope you realize that.”
“Still worth it.”
“I wish you could hear yourself.” Calisto scratched at his jaw and asked, “Is that it, you love the girl, and that makes acting like a foolish boy worth it to you?”
“Shit, I think I’ve always loved her.”
And hell yeah, that was exactly why it made it worth it.