Page 53 of Cadence
“I’ll take it.” He grins and wiggles his eyebrows. “I know I can definitely use theprivacywhen the fans start throwing themselves at me.”
“No,” I say at the same time Paige groans.
“I don’t want to bethat guy,but can we make a pact?” she asks, glancing between all of us. “The bus is band-only? No hook-ups, no groupies. No bringing anyone back here. It’sourspace?”
I should agree. I do, but the hypocrisy isn’t lost on me, because the truth is, if I ever got her alone in that back room, there isn’t a pact in the world that would stop me.
“Any other rules, princess?” I mutter, leaning against my bunk.
“You’re such an ass,” she deadpans with a roll of her eyes.
“Actually,” Beau says, stepping in. “Paige has a point. The stakes are higher now. We don’t want any unwanted drama on the bus.”
“Buuuut,” Eli whines, flopping dramatically onto his mattress. “The girls from Tennessee are so fucking hot.”
“She didn’t say no screwing around, dumbass,” he says. “Just no screwing around in here.”
Eli groans like he has this master plan of sleeping his way across state lines. I huff a humorless laugh, grabbing the handle and slamming the door shut harder than necessary.
“Fine. Top bunk next to Eli’s chainsaw snoring it is then. Just don’t come crying to me when you can’t sleep.”
Spinning, Paige climbs into her bunk, muttering something under her breath that I only half-catch, but it’s enough to know it’s aimed at me.
The skirt of her dress rides up as she moves, the fabric sliding up inch by inch until it bunches high on her thighs. Lying on her side, she faces me, one hand tucked under her head, the other lazily tracing invisible lines along her skin.
She thinks she’s won. She knows I’m watching without even having to look up to check, not when every slow sweep of her fingers says it louder than words.
And still, that goddamn smile plays on her lips.
A threat.
A dare.
These three months are going to kill me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Paige
Everything’sthesame.
At least, that’s what it looks like from the outside. Inside? I’m keeping one of the hottest moments of my life to myself, pretending it doesn’t live rent-free in my mind, rushing to the forefront every time I see him walking around half dressed in the morning or waltzing around in a towel after a shower.
Maddox talks more to me now—still clipped, still at a slight distance—but his silence isn’t absolute anymore. Sometimes he lingers, asking questions he never would’ve before. Glances last too long, arms brush when we pass in the narrow tour bus hallway, and now, he doesn’t walk in the opposite direction.
Eli doesn’t seem to notice a thing, still joking, walking around the tour bus, documenting our every move for social media.
But Beau…Beau’s different. Quieter. Watchful in a way that feels like he sees more than he’s letting on.
I’ve caught him murmuring to Maddox a few times, their voices low and hushed, their words always out of reach, always cutting off the second I’m near. There’s a conversation happening around me, I know there is, and I think I’m the subject.
We don’t speak about what happened, either, or about the fact he left with the recording and I didn’t even try to stop him. It’s all deniable; it has to be. We’re not stupid. Band members don’t fool around together. Even if it was only once.
We act normal, professional, but my body knows he’s in the room before I even look his way. Each unsaid word has subtext, a memory of the way he said my name with his fingers inside me, the scrape of his jaw across my cheek. I can’t unhear it, can’t unfeel it.
And while we orbit around each other in this tiny space, it’s like we’re both waiting for the other to slip up, for it to happen again.
So in the meantime, we play, we tour, we act like nothing has changed.
