Page 202 of Always: A Legacy Novel

Cross grabbed for her hand.

Catherine snapped back from his grasp before he could even touch her, and then she struck out at him, opened palmed and aiming for his face. He was too shocked to dodge it, but he did manage to catch her swinging arm before it connected.

She didn’t hit.

Not him.

Not even when they were doing their on again, off again fuck-fest during his last year of high school. Oh, the girl could rage when she was drunk and pissed off at him, sure, but she never hit.

Catherine’s eyes blazed with fire. “Let me go.”

“Don’t ever raise your hand to me, Catherine. I’ve never hit you, and I never will. You’ve got words, so use them instead.”

She jerked her arm out of his grasp, and headed for the back hallway that lead to the bathroom and bedrooms. Cross followed, only to get the bedroom door slammed in his face.

He was not here for this sort of petty shit.

She didn’t lock the door, so he went in behind her.

And dodged a pillow coming his way the second he was in the doorway. Then, another.

“What the hell, Catty?”

Catherine threw the other four decorative pillows off the bed at him, too. Cross let her throw her fit, but once she was out of pillows, he headed her way.

“That’s enough,” he said, rounding the bed.

“How dare you?” she screamed at him.

Cross hesitated. “What?”

“You went to my cousin, and told him to back off? Who the fuck are you to get in my business like that, Cross? Do I ever tell you to stop running all over New York, day in and day out? Have I ever called your father and demanded he stop sending you to Chicago every other week? How dare you do that to me?”

“Cath—”

“Go to hell!”

“Babe, I went to Andino because nothing I say to you is getting through. You’re not listening. You can’t keep this shit up, don’t you get that? You can’t keep doing it like you are.”

Catherine sucked in a sharp breath, and straightened like someone had shoved a rod up her spine. “You don’t ever get to tell me what I can or can’t do, Cross. No one ever has, and no one ever will. I do what I want, on my terms. Just like you do when you keep fucking off all over this state, or whatever one you’re heading to next week.”

“It’s not about telling you what you can or—”

She shoved past him, once again, not listening.

“Fuck off,” she muttered.

Cross grabbed her around the waist, pulling her back into him before she could get too far away. “Catherine, chill out. You’re drunk and pissed, I get it.”

He wasn’t letting her out of his arms, no matter how hard she struggled, or the cusses she hurled at him. It took a minute, but she settled a bit, sinking against him with a sob.

“Why would you do that to me, Cross? I don’t want people thinking I’m messed up in my head, or hovering over me like I’m some fragile doll. I don’t need them asking me questions, or staring more than they already do. I handle my business alone. You had no right to do that to me!”

He let her go, and she faced him. “Don’t you hear yourself? This is exactly why I did it, Catherine. You need to stop, or slow down. You’re not managing the rest of the shit going on in your life, or things that happened. You’re burying it, you’re using dealing and who you are when you’re out there doing that to mask the shit you don’t want to deal with. You did the same thing when you were sixteen and—”

“I told you I was fine!”

She definitely wasn’t fine, but he had crossed a line. Big time. Cross was only now seeing it.