Page 29 of Always: A Legacy Novel

Cross filled his mouth with eggs and bacon, more interested in feeding his face than having a weird conversation with his step-father.

“So,” his mother said, sitting down at the table with her own plate, “did you set up something elsewhere? That’s what Cal is asking.”

“Trying to ask,” Calisto corrected.

“Why didn’t you just ask that, then?” Cross asked.

His plate was already finished.

According to his mother, he ate like every teenage boy that didn’t think they would ever get fed again in their lifetime. Cross figured he just didn’t have time to sit and care about the food, as long as it tasted good and went in his damn mouth.

Standing from the table, Cross leaned over and gave his mother a kiss on her cheek. “Thanks, Ma.”

“You didn’t answer my question, son,” Calisto said.

Cross shrugged. “No party elsewhere. I’ve got a game tonight—last one before winter. And Wolf is taking me to Chicago this weekend, so no party then, either.”

“Well. All right.” Calisto smiled, and picked up his paper once more. “Better for me to ask, and for you to tell the truth, then for me to find out later you lied, Cross.”

“I’m not having a party. I’d give you the damn address to the place if I was.”

“Language,” Emma chided.

Calisto ignored his wife’s warning. “Yeah, I got it, son. Relax.”

Cross glanced at the clock on the wall, noting the time. “I’ve got to head over to Zeke’s, or someone else is going to need to drive me to school.”

“Get going,” Emma said with a wave of her hand, “and try to be good, Cross!”

Cross was already gone before his mother could finish her sentence. He had just sat down on his bike—soon, it would need to be put away for the winter months—when his phone buzzed in his jacket.

Ignoring the bite of the November air, Cross pulled the phone out to find a text scrolling over the screen.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want a party. He didn’t hate his birthday, really, even if he had been saying he was fifteen for a couple of months before he even actually turned that age. It was just … what fun would it be?

Not much without a green-eyed, dark-haired girl.

Not much fun at all.

Happy birthday, Catherine’s text read.

He’d thank her at school.

His way.

Cross ignored the heys and the half a dozen gazes of girls as he sat down beside Catherine in the cafeteria. She finally made friends in her own grade and some from his, although sometimes, it seemed she could do without them.

He didn’t blame her.

Cross felt the same way about people.

“Here,” Catherine said the second Cross was seated beside her, “hold this for me.”

Cross took the sketchpad. “What do you want me to do with it?”

“Just … hold it there.”

He shot a look at the table she had been using before, but shrugged it off. She had the better idea, anyway.