Page 72 of Cadence
I snatch it off the bed, flipping to the page I know she’s been working on. The off-white paper glows under the dull light above me, and it hits me how familiar this has become. My rushed scrawl crisscrossing her neat one, her latest note small and wedged in the margin.
Still trying to dodge those feelings, maestro? I think you’re losing. This is beautiful.
The corners of my mouth twitch before I can stop them. I can picture her writing that, elbow on the table, lip caught in her teeth, thinking too hard.
Paige peels me open in ways that scare the shit out of me. More than Eli or Beau ever could, and those guys have seen me at my worst.
My gaze drifts across the darkened bus to the two bunks on the other side, landing on the top one, curtain half-drawn.
I wish she would’ve taken the private room because I’m attuned to it all. Every time she rolls over, the way her breathing changes when she dreams, that soft little sound she makes in her throat when she’s just waking up.
A sweet sort of torture every single day as we map the route of the tour.
She’s two steps away, and yet she might as well be on the other side of the fucking world. I ache like she’s next to me, feel her everywhere. Even in my sleep.
My pen’s already in my hand, fingers tight around it, and I hover for a second, rereading her words again before adding my own, tucked small between the lines like a secret only for her.
Giving up would be losing. And then who would you tear apart and put back together?
Tapping the pen against the page, I wait, knowing I should stop there, but something kicks up inside me, the creative part of me that only gets this unhinged around her. I flip to a new page and start sketching the bars of a chorus that’s been gnawing at the back of my head for days. It’s barely coherent, but it’s real.
And hers. Even if she’ll never know it.
Letting the pen linger for a second longer, I write one more note at the bottom.
Don’t fix this yet. Break it apart. Don’t hide your process from me. Show me how your brain works. How you take something raw and make it refined.
The second the ink dries, I slam the book shut before I change my mind and tear the whole thing out. My fingers curl around the cover, the leather still warm from my touch.
I don’t want her clean edits or simple margin notes. I want her instinct, her gut reactions. The in-between parts that need filtering to find where the good shit lives. The part where she makes sense of me.
Carefully, I slide out of bed, keeping my footsteps light as I cross the narrow space between our bunks and slip my notebook under the curtain, tucking it beneath her pillow. Long auburn strands scatter out across the cream cotton as she faces away from me. My hand pauses mid-air, caught in that fragile space between wanting and knowing better.
I don’t mean to touch her, but I do. Just one strand, caught between my fingers like a fuse I’m too fucking stupid to stop sparking. If she wakes, I’ll lie, say I was giving her the notebook, or something fell out of her bunk. Anything but admit that I had a weak moment of needing to touch something that’s not mine.
She doesn’t stir, though, doesn’t shift, and I stay one second too long until want turns risky in the quiet.
I pull back and retreat to my bunk, lying flat on my back with clenched fists by my sides and the ghost of her hair still tangled in my fingers. In a space this small, there’s nowhere to run. And no distance is wide enough to keep her from my every waking thought.
Chapter Thirty-One
Maddox
Threesongsin,andPaige is glowing. Not from the lights, though they’re blinding, hot enough to feel like we’re playing on the surface of the sun. But from something else entirely.
She’s not the new girl anymore, the one I felt like I needed to test. She’s one of us now. Locked in, focused, arms moving with precision, every hit of the snare and crash of the cymbals landing exactly where they should.
Beau and Eli fall into her rhythm like it’s second nature, playing off her cues like this is how we were always supposed to be.
And I can’t stop watching her.
I tell myself it’s just the music, the performance, the next chord. That I’m listening to the sound. But it’s not the music that has my pulse climbing. It’s her.
Shifting my stance, I spin on stage in time with the song, just to watch her play. Her whole body moves as she fluidly controls the beat, her right arm doing most of the lifting. It smacks down hard on the snare as her left hand flies fast across the hi-hats.
We tear through the rest of the set, the energy buzzing like electricity zapping around the stadium. Phone lights sway in the crowd, little glowing dots moving in sync, sweat and screaming wrapped around every chord. It’s one of those rare sets where everything just works. Guitar, bass, and drums.
The final chord fades, and I step up to the mic, wiping a bead of sweat off my temple.
