Page 56 of Cadence
He’s already looking at me, that dark stare locked, unreadable. But under it? Heat. Always heat.
And I’m becoming addicted to feeling it aimed at me.
“It’s okay,” I say quickly, voice rough, trying to shake off the awkwardness. “If he doesn’t want my help, that’s fine.”
“Dude, that line you fixed for him at the first show? Killed,” Eli says, grinning. “I swear I’ve seen people get it tattooed on their wrists.”
“What?” Beau asks, brow pinching. “Where have you seen that?”
“Instagram.” Yanking out his phone, Eli taps furiously and shoves it into Beau’s face. “See?”
He whistles, sounding impressed, before Eli flops down beside me, shoulder bumping into mine as he scrolls through more.
Different skin, different cities. Some delicate, some heavy. But always my words, immortalized in ink.
Leaning over, I zoom in on one image, all clean lines and heavy shading.
Sure, this is probably not the first time someone’s tattooed lyrics I wrote on themselves before, but this feels different.
I’m about to flick to another when a shadow falls across the table. Looking up, Maddox’s tall frame blocks everything; the light, the space, the air. Eli glances up, taking his cell back and spinning it to face him.
“Dude, did you see—?”
“I need to speak to Paige.”
Eli glances at me, then at Maddox.
“Ooookay,” he mutters, then slides out of the booth, wariness flickering in his blue eyes, his phone suddenly the most interesting thing in the world.
“That was…rude,” I say flatly, crossing my arms.
“He’ll live.”
The silence thickens, wrapping around my neck, stopping me from calling him out when he reaches behind his back. No explanation, no smart-ass remark. Just the notebook, held out toward me.
I stare at it, at the beat-up edges and bent spine. Familiar and sacred and dangerous all at once.
I don’t move for it. Not right away. Not because I don’t want to. I do, maybe more than I should. I’ve desperately wanted another glimpse into the man he shows on paper, and now, he’s asking for my help, handing me the only language he knows, his way of saying what he can never say out loud. And it feels like the world just tilted.
His notebook. His armor, his arsenal, his secrets.
It has to be a setup. Any second now, he’ll yank it back, toss out some razor-edged comment, remind me I don’t belong anywhere near his inner world. My fingers finally brush his, sending shock waves up my arm that are impossible to ignore.
I open my mouth, maybe to ask if he’s sure, maybe to thank him, maybe to see if he wants to go through it together, but he’s already gone.
Staring down at the notebook, holding it a little too tightly, I’m not sure what to do with the sudden weight of it. It’s not heavy, but it feels like it should be. It’s just paper, but it buzzes through my fingers, loaded with everything undiscovered.
Sinking lower in the booth, knees up, shielding it like a secret, I crack it open. The pages blur, black and blue ink, wild scribbles, fragments of brilliance tangled with frustration. Half-finished lyrics, broken lines, barely contained chaos. No order. No filter. Just Maddox, raw and real, and for a second, I can’t breathe.
Flipping past the page I helped him with, my fingers slow as familiar writing catches my eye. It’s mine, my note from weeks ago.
And then, just below my words, I see it, his jagged scrawl. An answer I never thought I’d get.
She won’t ever get to hear it. No one will.
Cold slides across my skin, the finality in his statement too much to bear. I wasn’t expecting a reply—hell, I wasn’t exactly thinking my note would somehow miraculously make him decide to add this to a new album. But now, reading this, it’s like he’s locked that part of himself in a box and swallowed the key.
I read the lines once more before turning the page slowly.
