Page 94 of Always: A Legacy Novel

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 to 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.