You ready?
Catherine’s responding text came almost at the same time Cross saw her come out of the front door of her home. Yep.
Cross usually loved summer because at any given time he could be anywhere. It was harder for him to go on trips with his father or Wolf during the school months unless it was on a weekend. In the summer, all he had to do was roll his ass out of bed in the morning and get in whatever car was waiting outside.
Usually, he liked this.
But once June had rolled around, the end of the school year came, and Cross quickly realized this summer wouldn’t be the same. Most of the time he spent with Catherine was at school, and it was almost impossible to see her outside of it unless he didn’t mind having one of her babysitters standing at his back the whole time.
For the most part, he didn’t mind.
He still didn’t get to see her enough.
Add in the week-long trip to Vegas, a few days stay in Ontario, Canada, and a quick run to Chicago, and it was already the end of July.
Cross had a handful of days in between when he had actually seen Catherine for more than a few minutes.
It fucking sucked.
Maybe that was why he had been so surprised when he texted her that morning to hang out, and Catherine said she was free to go wherever the hell he wanted. Without someone following behind.
So yeah, usually Cross loved summer, except he wasn’t enjoying it very much that year. But seeing Catherine’s sly smile, the flower crown decorating the French braids in her hair, and the flowy summer dress that stopped at her mid-thigh, it was about to get a whole lot better.
Cross pushed open the back door of Zeke’s Camaro, and Catherine slid inside without a look over her shoulder. She kicked her flats off to the car’s floor, dropped her bag, and then climbed onto Cross’s lap for her kind of hello.
He really loved her hellos.
All he could taste was summer heat and cherry-flavored lip balm when she kissed him sweetly on the mouth. Her green eyes locked onto his as she pressed another kiss to his lips, and her thighs straddled his waist.
“All right, that’s enough,” Zeke said from the front, “or it’ll be all damn day before we get where we’re going.”
Amanda laughed in the middle front seat, saying, “Yeah, I want to bake in the sun.”
A girl—a friend of Amanda’s but not someone Cross knew personally—fiddled with the radio from the front passenger seat.
Catherine rolled her eyes, but slid off Cross’s waist to settle in beside him.
Zeke waved a finger in the air. “Buckle up, buttercup.”
“That’s an awful nickname,” Catherine said.
“It’s not for you. It’s for Cross.”
Catherine laughed, while Cross just scowled at his best friend in the rearview mirror.
“What?” Zeke asked. “You’ve been a miserable prick all week. Smile, Cross.”
Oh, Cross would smile.
The bastard …
Catherine must have seen the promise of quick violence in Cross’s eye because she grabbed his jaw turned his head toward her, and kissed him one more time. She always seemed to do that—see his annoyance flare and quickly tamper it down when even he couldn’t. Her kiss was far more than enough to soothe his irritation for the moment.
Until Zeke spoke again.
It wasn’t even bad this time.
“Are we ready or what?”
Cross weaved his fingers into Catherine’s loosely French braided hair, and tugged her close enough to smell the cherry blossom perfume she liked so much. At the same time, he reached into the front driver’s seat and smacked Zeke in the back of the head.
“Drive,” he muttered.
“You’re such an ass,” Zeke said, rubbing at his head and putting the car in gear.
Amanda threw a magazine back at Cross with a half-hearted glare. “Be nice, you.”
“He earned it.”
“Where are we going?” Catherine asked.
“Queens,” Zeke answered.
“That tells me nothing.”
“Jacob Riis Park,” Cross told her.
“The beach?” Catherine’s smile brightened even more, and she tossed her hands up in the air. “Yes.”
Cross laughed at her excitement.
She was fourteen, all sun-kissed bronze, smooth skin, and painted toes.
Fucking right she loved the beach.
“I should have brought a bathing suit,” Catherine mused.
“That water is cold.”
“So? You would warm me up.”
Cross shrugged. “Of course.”
Did she expect anything different?
Catherine squinted out at the water where Zeke was currently throwing Amanda into the waves. Amanda’s friend wasn’t very far behind, nor the other guy that Zeke had stopped to pick up on their way to Queens. Their laughter melted into the sounds of the other people at the beach and the splashing. The beach wasn’t filled with people, but there was enough.
Leaning back on the blanket and using his elbows to keep himself propped up, Cross stared up at the bright sky from behind his aviator sunglasses. Catherine laid back, too, rolled to her side, and rested her head in her hands on top of his stomach. He fiddled with the few stray waves of her hair that had escaped from the loose braids.
“Your parents don’t mind that you constantly run around with older kids doing whatever you want?” Catherine asked quietly, still watching his friends.
“I mean … no.”
It wasn’t the first time she asked that.
He didn’t know if she was expecting a different answer, or what.
“You’re out with us,” Cross said, shooting her a look, “so yours must not mind, either.”
Catherine’s nose scrunched up. “Yeah, I guess.”
“They didn’t mind, right?”
“No, Cross, they didn’t mind.”
He was pretty sure she had said that just to make him shut up about it, but he decided not to press it. Besides, if he did, and he got an answer he didn’t like or one that might get him into ten shades of shit, he would have to take her back home.
Cross liked her right where she was.
Without warning, Cross grabbed Catherine around her waist, and pulled her on top of him. His fingertips grazed along the outsides of her smooth thighs up under the flower pattern of her summer dress. His exploration was only stopped by the twinkle of green eyes and the fast kiss she dropped to his lips.
Honestly, he didn’t need to be going beyond that, anyway. No need to flash his girl’s ass to the rest of the people on the beach. It was difficult enough to ignore the way his jeans got tighter and more uncomfortable because Catherine was on top of him and moving in that way of hers.
Not that it mattered.
Just because it was hard to ignore, didn’t mean he acted on what he felt.
Cross let Catherine decide on all of that—from when and if she wanted him to touch her, to when and if she wanted to touch him.
It was always going to be on her.
Catherine grabbed the edge of the extra-large blanket they were laying on, and pulled the fabric up over her back until they were both covered and shaded from the sun. Cross brushed away the bit of sand that had fallen into her hair. Catherine pulled off his sunglasses.
She caught his hands with her own. Her palms pressed to his while her fingertips tapped against his softly, and then he weaved their fingers tightly together.
She smelled like cherries, summer, and innocence.
“Hey,” she whispered.
Cross grinned. “Hey.”
“Best day of the summer yet, Cross.”
“You think?”
“Yep”
Her teasing, sweet fingertips drew pathways over his arms, up his throat, along his jaw, and then over his lips. He stayed still and enjoyed her touches.
“Cross?”
“Hmm?”
Catherine’s cheeks reddened.
“What, Catherine?”
“Have you ever … like, had sex? I just wondered, because, I don’t know,” she said, still pink-cheeked and avoiding his gaze, “you don’t ask, but you’re … well …” She shifted on him again, making him painfully aware of what she was trying to say without saying it.
“Hard,” he said frankly.
“Yeah. Have you?”
Cross shrugged. “Sure.”
Catherine looked away. “Huh.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It kind of does because you—”
“Don’t care about that,” Cross interjected, unbothered.
Catherine shifted on him again. “I think you do.”
“Not unless you do.”
Her embarrassment seemed to bleed away. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
Catherine nodded. “Okay, Cross.”
Cross groaned when Catherine’s phone started ringing in her bag. He liked her right where she was, but she rolled off him with a laugh to find the damn phone, and tossed the blanket back at the same time. She picked up the call without even looking at the caller ID.
“Hello?” she asked.
“Where in the hell are you?”
The guy on the other end of the call was so loud, Cross had heard his question loud and clear. Catherine stiffened. “Johnathan?”
Cross sat up straight.
“I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on you and your brother this week, and the first time I take a day to do my shit, you fuck off somewhere. You know the rules, Catherine.”
“I just went with some friends to the beach,” Catherine said quickly, “I’m sorry, John.”
“Where are you?”
“Jacob Riis Park.”
“Don’t fucking move,” the guy barked. “I will be there in thirty.”
Catherine hung up the phone and stared out at the water again.
Cross rested back on the blanket. “Who is John?”
“My cousin. He’s kind of like … my babysitter. I skipped out on him earlier when he left to do some things.”
“You should have told me.”
She shrugged. “Yeah, well, I didn’t.”
“Still the best day of summer?”
Because he was pretty sure she wouldn’t be let of the house for the rest of it.
Catherine didn’t even think about it. “Yep.”
Chords flew out of the black Stratocaster under Cross’s handling. He hated the scales to warm up the guitar and his fingers, so he’d made a musical game of the same chords without the boring sound they usually provided. Cross just finished the warmup when the noise started from his step-father’s office across the hall.
“Why? Why, why, why, Cross? Cristo.”
Cross didn’t even bother to move.
Calisto would come to him.
It didn’t take his step-father long. Calisto darkened the library’s doorway, put his hands to both sides of the doorjamb, and hung his head low.
“Cross, please tell me why the sweet fuck I just got a call from Dante Marcello while he’s in Italy with his wife on a business trip? Tell me why, son, please.”
Ah, shit.
“Oh, yeah. Something happened yesterday,” Cross said, sticking his favorite pick into the strings on the neck of the guitar.
“Something happened.”
Cross lifted a single shoulder. “Basically.”
“You exasperate me, Cross.” Calisto, never raising his head, sighed heavily. “You do know that, right? You’re exasperating.”
He didn’t respond.
He figured his step-father wasn’t looking for a response, really.
“I have one job where being your father is concerned,” Calisto said. “Do you know what that is?”
Cross looked up from the Stratocaster. “I don’t know, love me or something?”
Calisto made a noise under his breath. “Yeah, shit, okay. Two jobs, then. The other one is keeping your ass alive long enough to see adulthood. After that, it’s all on you. I don’t think you even realize how hard you make that job for me sometimes.”
“The keeping me alive bit, or the loving me?”
“Right now, you’re making both of them hard, son.”
Cross nodded. “Yeah, I figured.”
“What the hell were you thinking yesterday picking Catherine Marcello up with Zeke and going to the goddamn beach?”
“That I wanted to go to the beach, and she might like to go, too.”
And she did.
“I can’t believe you seriously snuck that girl out, Cross.”
Cross hadn’t done that at all, but he didn’t correct his step-father. He didn’t know what story Catherine had told her parents for what she did the day before. He did know that she had lied to him—by omission at the very least—because he had assumed her parents were fine with her going out, and she hadn’t told him any different.
“She is not like you, son,” Calisto continued, seemingly unbothered by Cross’s silence. “She does not have the freedom you do, or the lack of rules because you know what, she actually follows the ones she has. Or she used to, before you … do whatever the hell it is you keep doing with her.”
Cross didn’t think that was true, either.
Catherine wasn’t all good.
She was just sly.
There was a difference.
“Don’t you have anything to say at all?” Calisto demanded.
“I mean, not really. It won’t happen again.”
Calisto blew out a harsh breath. “You’re goddamn right it’s not going to happen again. New rules, Cross, starting now. You follow whatever the hell that girl’s father wants regarding her, what she’s allowed to do, and what you can do when you’re even thinking about breathing in her direction.”
Cross didn’t like that at all, but whatever.
It was what it was.
“Cross,” Calisto said.
“Yeah?”
“Do you understand?”
“Yeah, Papa, I got it.”
Calisto finally let go of the doorjamb and straightened to his full height. “Please tell me you’re not having sex with that girl because I seriously don’t think her father could take that if he found out at this point. I know you messed around with one of the girls that hang around Zeke, but let me be very clear, Catherine is not like her, Cross. She is not.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“How the hell did we go from the beach thing to fucking?”
“Cross!”
“Relax, we’re not.”
And just because he messed around with someone before, as his step-father liked to say, didn’t mean he screwed everything that moved.
Calisto pursed his lips, and glanced upward. Cross swore he was sending up a silent prayer of thanks. He did that a lot.
“We’ve had that talk enough times,” Calisto said, a warning lingering heavily behind his words.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Don’t knock someone up. Condoms every single time. Consent can’t be given by drunk or high people that don’t even know their own names. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“If you’re even trying to joke with me right now, I swear to God …”
“I was serious,” Cross said, plucking the pick back out to play. His fingers hovered over the strings of the guitar. “Was that all?”
“No, that’s not all.”
“What else is there?”
“This morning,” Calisto said, “you and your sister fought until your mother had to separate you. You’re old enough to know that’s unacceptable.”
“She won’t leave me alone,” Cross explained, “and I told her to get the hell out of my space.”
“Cross.”
“She instigated it, that’s all.”
“Cross.”
“Maybe if she had more siblings to bother, she’d leave me alone.”
Calisto quieted, and folded his arms over his chest as he stared Cross down from the other side of the room. “Sometimes I honestly believe you don’t think. You just speak, Cross, without even considering for a second what you’re saying. Because that’s just how you are, but you need to curb that, son. Do you even know how badly that would hurt your mother if you said something like that to her?”
Cross frowned. “What?”
“Camilla did have more siblings, Cross. So did you. A little brother that was born early and didn’t live long after his birth. And another baby—a very early miscarriage. You were early, too, but healthy enough. You’re still a miracle to your mother. And your sister? She’s a goddamn miracle, too, born even earlier than you, and she fought every day of her first months just to live, Cross. Every. Day. So please don’t ever tell your mother maybe if her miracle children that did live, had the babies she can’t have because they’re dead, they might actually get along.”
Well …
Fuck.
“Sorry,” Cross said quietly.
“Think,” Calisto replied harshly, “before you speak.”
“Yeah, all right.”
“And Jesus Christ, when your sister says jump, Cross, you ask that little girl how high, and don’t you even hesitate. She adores you. You are the only brother she is ever going to have—get fucking used to being her best friend, her hero, or whatever the hell else she wants you to be whether you like it or not, whether you want to be or not. Got it?”
“I got it, Papa.”
“Good. Don’t ever forget it.”
“Cross, did you hear anything I just said?” Emma asked.
Cross looked up from his phone screen to see his mother staring at him. “What, Ma?”
“What is up with you?”
“Nothing.”
Emma patted her son on his cheek with a gentle palm. “You’ve had a rough couple of weeks, haven’t you?”
Cross ran a hand through his hair, and stuffed his phone into his pocket. That was likely the only way he would stop checking the stupid thing. “Nah, everything is fine, Ma.”
His mother frowned, but didn’t press the issue further. Cross figured that was probably because she didn’t want to somehow put him in a bad mood when they were having a good day. Emma had wanted to shop, Camilla was having her day out with Calisto, and so Cross was left to be his mother’s companion while she did her thing.
Apparently, he needed clothes, too. Not because he actually did need them, but his mother liked to spend money. Cross didn’t much care, but his mother rarely bought him anything unless asking him if he liked it first. Especially clothes.
“You’re sure nothing is wrong,” Emma pressed as she moved to another rack of clothes.
Cross glanced down at his empty hand, almost expecting his phone to still be there. “I haven’t talked to Catherine in two weeks, Ma.”
Emma frowned. “Do you talk to her pretty often?”
Every day.
Multiple times a day.
Or he used to.
Cross wasn’t sure if his step-father had explained the beach incident to his mother, or not, but that was when Catherine suddenly went silent on her end. He didn’t like that at all—he didn’t like the heavy feeling in his chest, or the deadweight in his stomach.
“Usually,” Cross finally answered.
“You two got in some trouble, huh?”
So his mother did know.
“She did.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “You should have, too.”
“I just went to the beach, Ma.”
“You know I don’t like you running from one side of New York to the other without some kind of adult with you, Cross. And you do it all the time, even when you’re told not to.”
“Zeke was there.”
Emma scoffed. “He is not an adult, far from it.”
Cross shrugged. “Keeps me out of trouble, though.”
His mother’s gaze softened. “I suppose he does, huh?”
“I’m not sure what to do.”
“About Catherine?”
“Yeah,” Cross said.
Emma pursed her lips. “Well, give her some time, Cross. Let her figure out whatever she’s got going on. Maybe she got grounded and can’t answer your messages or calls. You do know that’s a real thing, right? Teens do actually get grounded when they disobey their parents. They don’t rebel more, destroy property, and jump out their bedroom windows, in case you were curious.”
“Nice, Ma.”
“Head out to the car. I don’t think these clothes are anything you’ll like, but there’s some cute stuff for your sister. I won’t be long.”
Cross didn’t need to be told a second time. He bolted out of the small Brooklyn clothing shop before his mother could think better of her suggestion. He waved two fingers at the enforcer who was never far behind whenever his mother left the house. Calisto rarely sent a guard with Cross because he was always with Zeke, or Wolf, but his mother’s enforcer was always present for her.
His mother called it a blessing and a curse. A blessing because she knew they were safe when they left their home. A curse because that was just their life; it was an unavoidable disruption that she could never be alone when she was without her husband, and she accepted it being she had married a mafia boss.
It didn’t take long before his mother came out of the store, a bag in both hands, and slid into the driver’s seat. Emma chattered on as she drove the thirty minutes it took to get home, but didn’t seem bothered by Cross’s silence.
“Well, seems you’re going to get your answers,” his mother said.
“Huh?”
Cross looked up to find his mother had pulled into their driveway and parked in front of the large garage. He’d been so stuck inside his own head that he hadn’t even realized where they were. That wasn’t what caught his attention first, though.
Catherine sat on the large marble steps of the Donati home with what looked to be Cross’s leather jacket wrapped around her arms. He’d given it to her a month ago when he was at her house, and it started raining while they were walking through the back property.
He never asked for it back, because shit, it looked better on her.
“Marc can help me with my bags,” his mother said softly.
“Thanks, Ma.”
She waved him off, and Cross got out of the Mercedes without another word. He squinted up at the bright, early August sun as he headed in Catherine’s direction. She stood from the steps, still keeping hold of his jacket, as he came to a stop in front of her.
“Hey,” Catherine said.
“How did you get here?”
She waved at a black SUV parked across the road. “Johnathan—my cousin. Kind of messed up with the whole taking off thing and leaving him hanging like that. Marcellos don’t do wrong by family, or so my dad says. I’m supposed to be making it up to him by spending the day with him, I guess.”
“He just brought you over?”
“I asked, so. Apparently I should have just done that in the first place.”
Cross shifted from one foot to the other, that heavy pressure and deadweight feeling starting to grow in his chest and stomach all over again. Not to mention, for it being a warm day, he was terribly cold all of the sudden.
“You haven’t answered me back for two weeks.”
Catherine wouldn’t meet his gaze as she ran a hand through her loose waves of hair. “Lost my phone and stuff for a week.”
“That’s one. Not two, Catherine.”
They both quieted as his mother and her enforcer Marc headed past them up the stairs, both carrying bags. Catherine spoke first once the front door was closed again.
“I wanted to bring your jacket back,” she said.
Cross didn’t move to take the item when she tried to hand it over. “I don’t want it.”
“Well, it’s not mine, and I won’t be able to give it back after today, right? We won’t see each other very much at all once we’re back at the Academy. You’ll be in the upper Academy. I’ll still be in the lower. Kind of stupid to be with someone when you can’t really be with them, isn’t it?”
No.
“We’ll figure it out,” Cross said.
He planned to, anyway.
“No need,” Catherine replied with a shrug. “It’s better we figure it out now, not then. I think we both know how that’ll end.”
“I think I know how this is going to end.”
He didn’t like it at all.
“I’m sorry, Cross,” she said in a whisper.
She still wouldn’t look at him.
“Is this actually because of school, or something else?”
Catherine finally met his gaze. “What?”
“So you got in trouble for something you did because of me.”
“I never said it was because of you.”
“To them?” he asked.
Catherine glanced away. “I just—”
“So is it about school, and all that, or because your parents are pissed and you want to make them happy again?”
She didn’t answer him.
He didn’t need her to.
“You should take your jacket,” Catherine said, holding the item out again.
She still wore that leather wrap bracelet with the conch shell on her wrist.
It was still there.
She never took it off.
“Keep it—I don’t want it.”
“But …”
“Looks better on you,” he said.
Behind him, the SUV waiting on Catherine honked their horn. Her gaze darted over his shoulder, and then back to him just as fast.
“I am sorry, Cross,” she said.
He didn’t want to hear that again.
“Don’t keep your cousin waiting, Catherine. You should go.”
“But—”
“Just go,” Cross said, feeling numb in his fingertips.
That numbness kept spreading, too.
Catherine nodded once, and then darted to the walkway. Cross didn’t turn around until he heard the door shut and the tires of the SUV crunch on pavement. He sat down on the bottom front step of his home, and wondered why his chest hurt so fucking badly.
Why did it hurt to breathe?
Why couldn’t he unclench his fists?
Why were his eyes stinging?
Cross wasn’t quite sure how long he sat there, but his daze was finally interrupted by the front door opening and closing. A second later, Marc dropped down to sit beside him.
“Hey, principe.”
Cross didn’t say a thing.
He was too pissed.
Too numb.
Too everything.
“Yeah,” Marc said with a low chuckle, “that first one is a bitch, Cross.”
“First what?”
Marc smacked him on the back. “You’ll figure it out. So shit, why don’t you come chill with me for the rest of the day since your mother isn’t leaving the house again, and I’ll take you somewhere to get your mind off this, huh? I don’t think the boss would mind, considering.”
Calisto, he meant.
Cross cleared his throat. “Go where?”
Marc laughed. “A made man’s kind of place, principe. They’re good for distractions, and we all need one of those sometimes.”