Page 90 of The Darkest Note

DUTCH

My arms encircle Cadey’s waist and I breathe in her scent.

I want the hug to last longer, but she pulls back and a conflicted look passes through her brown eyes. Then, as if she’s made up her mind about something, an uncomfortable grin touches her lips.

Her hair slaps me in the face when she whirls around and throws her arms around Finn next. My brother exhales in surprise, his eyes shooting to me.

Cadence releases him and goes to Zane. I scowl in my twin’s direction, watching carefully to make sure his hands don’t slide down any further than they have to.

The possessiveness takes me by surprise. So what if Zane hugs Cadence? It doesn’t matter to me.Shedoesn’t matter to me.

I rip my eyes off her although everything in me wants to keep looking. Kneeling next to my guitar, I turn down the volumes.

Normally, I’d wait for the event to be over before I start taking down instruments, but I jump straight to the mixer board, mute the other guitars and start unplugging wires.

Cadence hops off the stage and I pretend not to notice.

“Dutch, what are you doing?” Black and white sneakers fall into my line of sight. They’re pristine, which means they belong to Finn. He’s a sneaker head and treasures his vintage shoes like trophies.

“I’m taking down the instruments,” I mumble. It should be pretty freaking obvious.

“Where did Cadence go?” Zane asks, joining me at the front of the mixer board.

“How the hell am I supposed to know?” I growl.

There’s a fine line between harmless ribbing and fight talk. I know I’m spinning out closer to starting a fight than anything.

But Zane doesn’t look annoyed. He just looks amused.

“What’s got your panties in a twist?”

I roughly bend our wires so they can fit in our travel case. “I flunked on the last riff.”

I got nervous with Cadence standing beside me and my fingers didn’t bend the strings right.

My brothers nod because they know how seriously I take music. What they don’t know is how much of tonight’s music I enjoyed simply because Cadence was there with her stupid triangle.

My head’s a mess and it’s all her fault. When I saw her walk out of the changing room wearing that silky black dress, her mouth all glossy and pink…

I nearly busted a vein.

Then she threw her arms around me after the performance tonight.

It was just a squeeze, as basic and innocent as vanilla cream, but my pants got so tight I’d thought they’d pop off.

Every nerve in my body is alive from her touch.

Finn looks at me like he knows the real reason why I’m restless. I need my brothers to get out of my face as soon as humanly possible.

“Oh, I found her.” Zane nods in the direction of the crowd.

I look up almost eagerly. And then I scowl when I don’t see Cadence anywhere.

“Byher, I mean her hot best friend.” Zane winks at me. “Who did you think I was talking about, Dutch?”

“Screw you.” I flip my brother off.

Finn scrubs his chin. “Any of you guys feel like we’ve seen her friend before?”

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