Page 96 of The Ruthless Note

CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE

DUTCH

I stomp the door of the practice room open and stalk a line straight to Sol. He’s sitting in the sofa, his foot kicked up and a beer bottle clutched in his hand.

His face is a mask of calm, but we’ve been friends for long enough that I can see the big, dark thundercloud looming over his head and gathering in his eyes.

He’s on the verge of burning it all down and the scary thing is that I don’t know whether to join him or let him torch himself until he’s ash.

“Dutch.” Finn gives me a worried look. “You know what’s going on?”

Zane twirls his drumsticks, a nervous quirk. His eyes jump from me to Sol and back. “Did you two fight?”

“No,” I grind out.

“Then what the hell happened?” Zane uses one of his sticks to point out Sol. “He came barreling in here, went straight to the fridge and touched my emergency stash. It’s ten freaking a.m. and—”

“He got called into Harris’ office.”

One of Zane’s drumsticks fall. “What the hell?”

“Are they trying to kick him out again?” Finn demands. His body is coiled, taut. My brother’s a lot like the instrument he plays. Quiet. Withdrawn. Fits right into the crowd until one of his strings get plucked and he starts booming through the room, his frequency lower, deeper, and more powerful than any other guitar.

I can handle Zane’s off-the-wall unpredictability. But Finn…

Finn is the one I’ve always had to keep an eye on because when he moves, it’s always quiet.

Until it’s not.

Sol doesn’t say a word. He just keeps drinking.

His Redwood Prep jacket is off and the sweater he always wears is folded back at the sleeves, as if he can’t bother hiding the scars anymore. As if he wants them to breathe for once.

Zane reaches down to pick up his drumsticks. “Is it Miller trying to get back at us for Christa?”

“We’re not the target,” I say darkly.

Sol stops drinking. A drop of beer trickles down his chin and he doesn’t wipe it away. His stare is blank, unseeing.

I haven’t seen him like this since that night we snuck into the boot camp. It was the first night I realized that my friend, someone I considered a brother, was broken.

Sol sets the beer down on the coffee table with an audible thud. He grabs the Redwood Prep jacket and uses it to sop up his face. And then he stands, his eyes skewering me.

“You messed with her grades?” His voice is soft but lethal.

I lift my chin. It’s the truth. I’m not going to run from it.

Sol peers at me with eyes that are red around the edges. But only a fool would think he’s getting teary because he’s emotional.

I’ve only seen Sol cry once.

It was the night after his oldest sister’s quinceañera. Someone from the neighborhood called the police because of the noise from the party.

Sol’s parents sent us over to the neighbor with flan to apologize. The neighbor threw the flan down while yelling slurs about Sol’s ethnicity and hinting that he and his parents should go back to Mexico.

Sol picked up the flan, threw it in the trash and let the tears come as far as his eyes.

A few days later, the guy’s prized garden was torched, his car windows were bashed in and his nudes got leaked to all his colleagues at work.

---