Page 61 of The Darkest Note

I grit my teeth. “Since when did you two get so nosy?”

“This is my first time seeing you lose your cool in front of a chick,” Zane observes, sticking a hand through his raven hair.

Finn agrees. “You looked a little spazzed when you left her.”

“She slapped me.”

Both my brothers go still.

Finn blinks rapidly. “She did what?”

“And you let her?”

I didn’t just let her. I was going to tell her every one of my secrets. Why we were looking for Cadence that night. Why we need her out of school. Why my loyalty is to Sol no matter what.

She had a damn lock on me from the moment I walked into the lounge and saw her behind the piano. There was no spotlight on her that night, but there might as well have been by the way I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

Everything about her was so unvarnished and authentic that it made me want to trap her inside me until whatever made her the way she was rubbed against me too.

Hell, maybe that was all it was. The need to feel someone that genuine under me. I swear I don’t go around following girls into changing rooms like a creep. Usually, it’s the other way around.

But the way it felt with her, it was almost like Iknewher. Like we were cut from the same cloth.

“Dutch, what is goingonwith you, man?” Zane demands.

I don’t know.

I have no freaking clue why this girl screws with my head. In fact, after the kiss-slap duet, it took me a long time to page through what the hell had just happened to me.

“Are you finally going to chase her down?” Finn asks.

“No.”

“That’s the only way Jinx will release her information,” Zane informs me.

My eyes sharpen on them. “What are you talking about?”

“We tried to pay Jinx for a name,” Zane explains. “It was the weirdest thing. She refused to give it to us. Said she’d only release that information to you.”

“Why do you think she’s playing games?” Finn asks.

“She’s always playing games,” Zane grumbles. “This time, she’s playing hardball.”

“Probably because she wants more money,” I growl. Whoever Jinx is, she’s a good businesswoman. I’ll give her that. I can’t count how much she’s managed to glean from the Cross brothers alone.

“There’s something more to that redhead,” Finn says thoughtfully. “I can feel it.”

I point angry eyes at him. “What exactly are you feeling?”

“Watch it, Finn. Dutch is going to deck you for thinking about his girl.”

“She’s not my girl.” I set my guitar down. “If we’re not going to practice, then I’m leaving.”

“Why? Your date isn’t until Saturday,” Zane teases.

I immediately stiffen the hell up.

On the one hand, I want to be smart about this. Whenever I’m around the redhead, my brain goes on the fritz. She’s all I can see. All I want. In fact, not even Christa’s thirty-thousand dollar lips going to town on me could rid me of the taste of her hot, cherry-flavored lip gloss. After it was over, I couldn’t help but wish it was the redhead that I’d had pinned to my steering wheel.