Page 73 of Always: A Legacy Novel

You don’t look around much, the next text read, and you’re not smiling.

Catherine tried not to make it obvious that she was peering around the crowd of drunk—or high—kids. There were too many people for her to really see anyone that might stick out to her, so she just went back to her phone.

Tell me who this is, Catherine texted.

Straight ahead, all the way across the room.

Catherine finally found her unknown messenger, although he wasn’t all that unknown. Cross stood exactly where he said he would be when Catherine looked for him. He leaned against the far wall—alone, like her—with one of his Doc Martens propped up so that his knee was bent. In dark wash jeans, a white T-shirt, and a leather jacket, he radiated a cool, unbothered, and sexy demeanor.

And yet, he didn’t have company.

He didn’t particularly look like he wanted any, either.

Cross flashed her a wink, and waved his phone. She only shook her head and smiled back. Catherine went back to her phone, since he seemed comfortable being on the other side of the room.

No friends?

Cross’s reply came a few seconds later: Friends are more trouble than they’re worth lately.

Catherine frowned. That’s not nice.

Where’s your friends?

Good point, she texted back.

No Derik tonight?

Catherine peered up under her lashes again, and now that she knew where Cross was, she picked him out easily. One could not tell the tone of a text, but for some reason, she felt the need to see Cross’s face after reading those three simple words he had posed to her.

His face was blank, sure, but his dark eyes were burrowing straight into her. He was good at a lot of things, she thought, but hiding his intentions when he was looking at someone was not one of them.

Cross did not like Derik.

Or he did not like the idea of Catherine being with Derik.

Either way, she figured it worked out to the same thing in the end. Cross was jealous. Unsurprisingly, that look fit him just as well as any other he wore.

She didn’t quite understand why she liked the way it made her feel.

Catherine went back to her phone. No Derik ever.

Let him make of that what he wanted.

After thirty seconds of waiting for a response, Catherine looked up to find Cross had closed the space between them, and then he leaned a shoulder against the wall. Staring down at her, he folded his arms over his chest, reminding Catherine all over again just how well a bit of time had treated Cross.

“Heard you got into a fight with Derik,” she said.

“Oh, did you?”

“Something about me, apparently.”

“Something like that,” he agreed.

Catherine eyed Cross from the side. “What did he say that pissed you off so much?”

“Nothing worth repeating.”

“But something.”