Page 83 of Cross + Catherine: The Companion

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.”