Page 56 of A Duet of Darkness and Dreams

Her forehead scrunches under her fringe. “For me?”

Not technically. Al only gave me four, one for each of the bandmates, but with James, Key, and Joel taking the other three, she doesn’t need to know I’ll pay for my own to give her the last one. “Yeah. Free is good, right?”

“Right.” She takes the voucher and stares down at it before tucking it away in her bag. “Thanks.”

She doesn’t look at me, and my chest tightens when I realize all I want is for those brown eyes to flit over my face. “Izzy,” I sigh. “Can we talk about earlier? I feel like I need to explain—”

“Actually,” she says, her face rounding on mine with the sharpness of a knife blade. Her eyes crackle like they’re simmering with stored up electricity. “I think I’m done with the talking. Talking is exhausting. I’m here to have fun.” She pushes past me to speak to Key. “Where are we heading first? I desperately need a drink.”

“That’s the spirit,” Key says. “There’s a club just down the street there, we can walk to it.”

“Perfect,” she says. Her eyes find mine for just a flash of a moment before she turns a sparkling, disingenuous grin at me.

My mouth drops open, but whatever I might have said dies on my tongue. What the hellcanI say? Maybe it’s best that she’s mad and stays mad.

Shrieking and yelling from just inside the chapel doors make all of us jump. With a quick look at one another, we all bolt for the double doors, wrenching them open to find James with Becks in his arms as coins fall in a waterfall of metal out of a slot machine in the lobby.

“You fucking won, angel!” James shouts, pressing kisses to Becks’s stunned face.

“You know, I take back what I said earlier,” Key says from next to me as we watch the coins form a small mountain. “Seems like the first round is on you two.”

I hate this.

I thought I could come in here and distract myself, but all I’ve been able to do for the past hour is watch Isabella in the middle of the dance floor. Joel is chatting up a couple of girls at the end of the bar and James is leaning against the rail, happily watching his new wife enjoy herself.

“What’s going on with you two?” Key asks, appearing at my side from out of nowhere.

“Huh?”

Key points to the two girls. “You and Isabella.”

I take a sip from my beer bottle and shake my head. “There’s nothing going on.”

“Bullshit.”

I look up at him and he narrows his eyes at me. “What bullshit?”

“Bullshit there’s nothing going on,” Key says.

Rolling my eyes, I press against the bar to order another beer. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He watches me for a moment, then his eyes widen. “Hold on, youlikeher.”

I turn away. “No.”

The lie is hollow though, and Key pushes his way in front of me along the bar. “You do! You like her.”

“Fuck off, Prentiss.”

He smirks, knowing he’s caught me now. “Come on, man, could you make it any more obvious? You’ve been staring at her since we got here.”

I say nothing. WhatcanI say? Ihavebeen staring at her, and apparently enough for others to notice too.

“Wait,” he says, holding up a finger with a metal skull ring on it. “Is this why you’ve been coming home alone after gigs?”

“Shut up, Key.”

He grins. “Holy shit, it is! How long has this been going on?”

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