Page 71 of Cadence
Not when opening for Reign has cracked something wide open in me. The scale of it. The crowds. The fuckingmagnitudeof how big we could be.
Stadium big.
Legacy big.
And I want it. All of it.
I want the kind of success that has us selling out arenas, fans screaming lyrics back at us like confessions. Because they like the songs, because theyfeelthem in their fucking bones. The way Reign’s fans do.
We’re good. I know we are. But we’re not there yet. And part of that is because…because of me. Because I can’t get my head straight.
Last week still lingers under my skin. Not the heat of what we did, but the way I kissed her afterwards and the press of her lips against mine as she kissed me back. Soft and hesitant, like she wasn’t sure what it meant.
Truth is, neither did I. All I knew was, I didn’t want to walk away.
I almost didn’t.
But then I remembered what was at stake. Beau, Eli, the band. Our whole damn future. Everything we’ve worked for.
So I forced myself to walk away.
When I left the things I bought her, she was curled up in the back room, a faint line of pain etched across her forehead. Half-asleep, she cracked one eye open just long enough to see me leave the bag before drifting off again, unaware of what was waiting for her. Not because she asked. But because it feltright.
I blow out a breath, bumping my head against the bunk wall, trying to clear the fog that always follows when I think about her for too long. Outside, the sky’s black, the windows reflecting the glow of the bunk light…and my scowl.
Everyone’s out cold, sleeping through yet another overnight drive, this time from Tampa to Dallas for our next set of shows. I should be asleep too, but all I can hear isher.
The soft hum under her breath when she’s thinking, the tapping of her finger against her tablet screen or the scratch of her pen in my notebook, the quiet shift of her weight in the booth she’s claimed as hers.
I told myself I needed to stay professional, keep my distance, but she makes that impossible without even trying.
We crossed a line again.Icrossed it.
The control room should’ve been a one-time thing, maybe even a lapse in judgement, but what happened after wasn’t heat of the moment.
Loophole,I said, like it was some sort of permission. But it’s bullshit and I know it. I shouldn’t have said it in the first place, and yet, here I am, holding on to that one word, ready to use it again.
But the first rule of being in a band? Don’t fuck your bandmate.
The second? Especially notthatone.
Lines get crossed all the time in this industry, being around the same people day in, day out, it’s sort of expected. But you don’t cross lines with ones that end careers. And Paige Erikson—PaigeDeveraux—could end mine.
Kit Deveraux is an industry kingmaker. One wrong move, and we won’t just lose her, we’ll lose everything. And that can’t happen. Iwon’tlet it.
But it’s not just about the risk. It’s the way she looks at me, like she sees something worth saving, like she’s not afraid of how damaged I am, and I’m finding the more time I spend with her, letting my guard down, the more I like it. Like when she woke up and found the bag, emerging from the back room with a smirk, she tossed one of the candy ropes at my chest, teasing me for buying enough products to stock a damn vending machine.
She’d sat cross-legged, opposite me, chewing on the gummy rope like it was some inside joke just for us. I’d laughed–actuallylaughed–and for the first time in a while, it didn’t feel like I was holding anything back from her.
That’s the part that keeps me up at night, because I want more than just her body.
I close my eyes and squeeze my fingers into the bridge of my nose, trying and failing to push Paige out of my mind. It doesn’t work. She’s there, sinking through my bones, burying deep inside, and I fucking hate it.
You hate that you don’t hate it as much as you should.
My hand drops to the bed, brushing the edge of my notebook beside me, half-lost in the shadow. I stare at it, aware I’ve been pretending not to see it all day. Pretending I didn’t feel its weight the second she slipped it back into my bunk this morning, thinking I was still asleep.
She never says anything when I pass it to her. Never looks at me when our fingers touch. If it weren’t for the quiet nod and the way she loses herself when she starts to read, I’d wonder if she truly understands what it costs me to let her in. Every part of me is in that book, inked on the page, secrets and truths buried between chords and riffs.
