Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Catherine turned her back to her brother, and refused to answer. She even crossed her arms over her chest. Something her mom would have said made her look like a brat.
Well, her mom wasn’t there.
And Catherine wanted to be a brat.
“Fine, be like that, Catherine,” Michel said from up on the playground equipment.
“I will!”
She still didn’t turn around or unfold her arms. It usually got her what she wanted. Eventually, someone would fold and give her what she wanted.
It always happened.
“Ah, just leave her alone, Michel,” Andino said. “We can play alone, anyway.”
Catherine scowled.
Her cousin was mean.
“Yeah, I guess,” Michel said. “She can just use the stupid ladder. It’s right there.”
“Who cares?” Andino asked. “We’re up here, so let’s make a fort with the snow.”
“Okay.”
Catherine stayed right where she was, and refused to budge even an inch. She knew it wasn’t really her brother’s or cousin’s fault that she couldn’t get up the slide like they could.
She was still mad that they could do it, and she couldn’t.
Sometimes, Catherine hated being so little. It made everything harder for her to do. Everyone else around her was taller, and faster. She could never keep up.
Sniffling, Catherine pushed up from the cold ground. Her boots crunched on the snow as she headed away from the playground. She could see her Uncle Giovanni sitting on a bench beside a man she didn’t know. Her uncle had been the one to bring them to the park, but now, she didn’t want to play at all.
She just wanted to go home.
It was only when Catherine got closer to her uncle and the unknown man that something else caught her eye. Or ... someone else.
A boy—sitting all alone on a bench nearby. He had no one sitting with him, and there were no other kids playing except her brother and cousin. The boy was probably not as old as her brother—not tall enough, she thought. He had to be older than her, though. Maybe he was the same age as Andino.
Even though the black-haired boy sat all alone and didn’t play, he didn’t seem like he really minded all that much. He looked fine by himself. She also thought he kind of looked like the man sitting next to her uncle. Maybe the man was his dad.
Catherine wondered what that felt like—to be happy all by yourself with no one else around. She thought that kind of seemed lonely. She didn’t like to feel lonely.
She didn’t want the boy to be alone, either, even if he didn’t look all that lonely.
Catherine changed directions and headed for the unknown boy, instead of going to her uncle to tattle. She was almost standing right in front of the boy before he even noticed she was there. He had brown eyes, and a nice smile. He didn’t say a thing to her as she climbed up to sit beside him on the bench.
“Hi,” she said eventually.
“Hi.”
“I’m Catherine.”
“Hi, Catherine.”
She gave him a look.
“You’re supposed to tell me your name,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because it’s polite.”
“What do you know about being polite?”
“My daddy says it.”
“But you don’t know what it means, huh?”
“Kind of,” Catherine said, “but a little bit no, too. He only tells me that when I meet new people, anyway. You’re new people. It’s polite, so what’s your name?”
“Hard to argue with that.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing.” The boy laughed. “My name is Cross.”
Catherine smiled widely.
She liked his name.
It was different, like him.
“Hi, Cross.”
I Guess
“Shit.”
Catherine looked away from the television in Cross’s apartment to watch him come back through the living room. He grabbed the leather jacket he’d previously discarded to the chair, and shrugged it over his shoulders before he came up behind where she sat on the couch.
“Are we going somewhere?” she asked.
Because God ... she just wanted to stay here.
With him.
Hide away from the world.
Do their thing.
Cross’s fingers tangled into her hair, and with a gentle tug, she tipped her head back for him. Without warning, he bent down and dropped a kiss to her lips that had Catherine smiling all over again and suddenly not caring at all if he did want her to get up and leave the apartment.
She’d thought being thirteen and with Cross was something else. And the years that followed just got better.
Now she was seventeen ... and it was still good.
Still perfect.
He was still hers.
Far too soon for her liking, Cross straightened back up while Catherine ran the tip of her tongue along her lips to lap up what taste of him remained.
“I have to run across town,” he explained, “and you can just stay here. It won’t take me too long, I promise.”
She sighed. “Promise?”
“Hmm?”
“You can’t kiss me like that and then leave, Cross, it’s rude.”
His grin turned sinful in a blink.
She loved that.
“I’ve heard patience is a virtue,” he told her.
“Says the man who doesn’t have an ounce of his own.”