Page 62 of Always: A Legacy Novel

“Good, because I think someone else has been looking your way for a couple of weeks now.”

Catherine flicked a stray wave of hair over her shoulder. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Uh, yes, you do. Derik, tall as hell, blond and blue-eyed, plays great defense, and took you to the movies last week.”

So yeah, that had happened.

Catherine still wasn’t sure if she liked Derik the way he seemed to like her. He was a lot like most guys were—physical, pushy, and way too freaking hands-on. Like just because he was a guy with a dick, and she was a girl with a vagina, that automatically meant the two needed to fuck. The more she backed away, the more he seemed to think she just needed more pressure applied. Sure, she’d done some things with a couple of guys she dated the previous year when she had felt comfortable enough to say yes, but it wasn’t very damn much.

Sex was still firmly off the table.

Derik certainly wasn’t going to be the guy who changed that decision. No matter how hard he tried.

“I mean, you are dating Derik, aren’t you?” Trisha asked.

Catherine sighed. “You could call it that.”

“Then don’t worry about you-know-who and whether or not they’re together. Not important.”

“I wasn’t worrying about it. You three just wouldn’t shut up, and I couldn’t not think about it.”

Lies.

All lies.

She’d been thinking about it too damn much.

Thankfully, Trisha’s phone buzzed with a text, taking her attention away from Catherine for the moment.

Catherine couldn’t help herself but check on the two across the lot. She found she was not alone in her staring this time around; Cross was looking in her direction, too. Unfortunately, his distraction didn’t seem to be missed.

Dina, chatting along, frowned when she realized Cross wasn’t paying attention to her. The girl followed his gaze to see he was staring at Catherine. Her brow furrowed, and then she said his name loud enough for Catherine to hear it fifty feet away.

Cross still didn’t respond. Dina gave him a shove on his shoulder. That finally got his attention, but it was too late.

Dina was already walking away, glaring at Catherine the whole time.

Wonderful.

Cross heard a floorboard creak, but didn’t even get the chance to open his eyes before a bucketful of ice-water fell on his body. He must have kicked off the blanket in the night because all he felt was freezing water hitting bare skin.

His shout was drowned out by the laughter of his step-father and little sister.

“That’s payback, bitch,” Camilla crowed.

Cross was still frozen in some cold hell of his sister’s making; one part of him trying to remember what he had done to get this treatment. The other half of him was terrified that if he moved, he’d feel like icicles were stabbing into his skin again.

“Cam!” Calisto shouted at her back as she fled the room. “Ladies don’t say those kinds of words!”

“Ma says I can be whatever I want to be, thank you very much!”

Cross fell back to his soaked mattress, and glared at the ceiling. “Fuck my life.”

“It could have been worse,” Calisto said.

“Please, tell me how. Because from where I sit, there couldn’t be a worse way to wake up.”

“Could have been naked.”