The Boy
Catherine POV
Catherine stayed to the edges of the room and kept a close watch on the most interesting part of her fifteen-year-old daughter’s birthday celebration. Cece didn’t want to call it a birthday party because apparently, that just sounded too juvenile for her.
Whatever.
A celebration it was.
The house was decorated. The family had come. Cece’s friends had poured into the house to fill it full. Presents were waiting on a table—piled nearly to the ceiling in beautiful wrapping paper with sparkling bows.
A cake needed to be cut.
And yet, Catherine had other things to do at the moment. Better things, even.
Well, depending on who you asked …
“What are you doing over here in the corner by yourself?”
Catherine gave her mother a look, and put a finger to her lips. “Shhh, look.”
Catrina did, and found the same scene that Catherine had been keeping an eye on all night. Actually, if she were being honest, this whole thing was years in the making for Cece. It was only now that the distance was starting to close between youthful, innocent crushes to something entirely different.
“Oh,” Catrina said.
Catherine nodded. “Yeah.”
Across the room, Cece stood chatting with a group of her friends. Standing close behind her was Juan—Miguel’s oldest son. He had a plate of food in his hands, and every so often, offered Cece a bite to take from his fingertips.
It was sweet.
It seemed innocent.
Except her daughter smiled in that way every single time she took a bite. Cece was constantly checking over her shoulder to make sure Juan had not gone too far from her side. And if another girl tried stepping in Juan’s path during the evening?
Nope.
Cece stopped that fast.
“How long has this been going on?” Catrina asked. “You didn’t tell me anything about this, Catherine.”
“Because you’re a gossip, Ma.”
Catrina poked Catherine hard in the back. “Lies.”
“Ouch.”
“Well!”
Gazes moved in their direction, and Catherine turned fast to make sure her daughter didn’t see her spying. She didn’t want Cece to know that she was keeping an eye on these new developments between her and Juan.
“Stop looking,” Catherine hissed at her mother.
Catrina rolled her eyes. “She’s not even looking this way. She’s too busy glaring at some girl who keeps looking at Juan.”
“Really?”
Catherine turned around to look again.
Her mother had been lying.
Sort of.
Cece wasn’t looking at them, but she wasn’t glaring at anybody, either. No, currently, she was holding onto Juan’s wrists as the two of them talked. The seventeen-year-old boy barely gave anyone else around them any of his attention while he and Cece conversed together.
She was all he cared to see.
Only she mattered.
Catherine’s smile grew.
“You’re very invested in this … thing,” Catrina said.
Catherine shot her mother a look. “What, like you weren’t invested in my relationships as a teenager?”
“Supportive. Encouraging. I wouldn’t say invested is the right word.”
“I am those things, too, Ma.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Thirteen,” Catherine said.
Catrina raised a brow. “I beg your pardon?”
“She has had a crush on him since she was thirteen, Ma. And Juan was always … really sweet, and good to her. I overheard Miguel telling him once that Juan had to be respectful and not overstep his boundaries with Cece because she was two years younger than him, and it wouldn’t look right for a boy his age to be chasing after a girl her age.”
“I suppose that makes sense.”
“He listened, too,” Catherine added. “But she’s not thirteen anymore, Ma.”
Catrina laughed in that way of hers. “You are way too invested in this.”
Catherine shrugged.
Oh, well.
She made no apologies.
“Someone has to be.”
“Couldn’t you share this investment of yours with your husband?” Catrina asked.
Catherine fake pouted. “God, Ma, why do you have to ruin everything?”
“How did I ruin it?”
“Just …” Catherine turned to look for Cece and Juan again, but it seemed the two had disappeared. Not the other friends, though. Cece’s little group of girls were still in full teenage girl mode in their semi-circle. Cece and Juan, though? Gone. “Where did they go?”
“Catherine, let them have time alone. You know, like I used to do for you.”
She gave her mother a look. “I’m not … getting in their business, Ma.”
“Spying is the same—”
“Did you see where they went, or not?”
Catrina sighed, and rolled her eyes. “They went into the back hallway. I am going to go find your father. He knows how to mind his business.”
“Whatever, Ma.”
Catherine was already leaving her mother behind. She moved through the chatting people, and slipped into the back hallway at the same time she heard the backdoor close. A backdoor that led out to their porch.
Soon, Catherine had slipped into Cross’s music room, and was peering out the window to check on her daughter there. Cece and Juan were sitting on the porch swing—fingers woven tightly together, and swinging back and forth.
Still quite innocent.
Still closing distance.
That was enough for her, really.
Catherine stepped back away from the window, done with her spying. She really didn’t mean to intrude on her daughter, or anything like that. She was simply excited for Cece because she knew how long her daughter had been waiting for something like this to happen.
“Catty?”
Catherine nearly fell over her own two feet as she spun around. Cross stood in the music room’s doorway with a cocked brow. “Hi. Hey. Wh—”
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
Cross gave her a look. “Right, okay.”
“Come on, let’s—”
Cross rocked back on his heels a bit, and peered out the back door. He probably had the perfect view of his daughter and Juan sitting together. Holding hands.
Catherine looked out her window.
Oh, wonderful.
They were kissing now.
A quick kiss.
Nothing more.
Cece initiated it, by the looks of things. And she quickly pulled away too with a sly little grin, and a laugh Catherine could only see, but not quite hear.
Oh.
“Spying, I think,” Cross murmured.
Catherine looked back to her husband. “Sorry.”
“You didn’t think to tell me?”
“I’m not even supposed to know, really.”
“Ah.”
Catherine moved away from the window lest the two outside notice her, and came closer to her husband. Cross, despite being very protective of Cece when it came to boys and dating, seemed to be doing okay at the moment.
Maybe that was the most surprising thing of all.
“How bad do you want to go out there?” she asked him.
Cross grinned. “I’m okay, actually.”
“You sure?”
“Well … you remember the last time Miguel came to visit?”
“Last month,” Catherine said. “Yeah, why?”
“Juan asked me then about taking Cece out.”
Catherine’s brow raised high. “And you didn’t think to tell me?”
Cross shrugged. “I told him no.”
She stiffened. “What—why?”
“Not no that they couldn’t … continue to be whatever the fuck they are. What are they, anyway?”
Catherine pursed her lips. “I don’t know. When it’s them, it’s them. That’s what I see, Cross. I don’t worry about the rest. That’s for them to figure out.”
“Like us, then.”
“What?”
“Us, Catty. You know, back when we were confused and together and not together … and everything else. When it was us, we were—”
“Us,” she whispered.
Cross nodded. “Yeah, babe.”
“But you told him no?”
“I said no to something like them going out of the house alone, or that kind of thing. Besides, it’s not that I don’t trust Juan, Catherine. I know he would be responsible, and good to Cece.”
“Then what it is?”
“Her,” Cross said simply.
“Her.”
“Mmhmm. She’s still unsure. She still doesn’t know. Last month, she was texting a boy at school, and at the last formal, she was excited about having two different boys to go with. She’s still trying to figure out this dating thing—this boys thing. Do you want her to figure that out with him? Figure that out on him? A boy who cares for her—loves her?”
“You think he—”
“I know he loves her,” Cross said, nodding. “And I think she loves him, too, but she’s still trying to figure this out. I want her to have the time to do that, Catherine. So yeah, when it’s them, it’s them. And when it’s not them, they don’t have to worry about it right now.”
“Huh.”
“You look confused,” her husband murmured, coming close enough to wrap her in his arms.
“No, not confused.”
“What, then?”
“I just remembered something, that’s all.”
Cross tipped Catherine’s head back, and dropped a kiss to her lips. “And what is that, my girl?”
“How amazing you are.”
Because he was. More than anyone knew.
Except Catherine.
Catherine always knew.