Page 107 of Finding a Melody

I had officially been abducted and I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. Why? Who?

What was going to happen to me?

Chapter Thirty-Three

~Paxon’s POV~

Toby was practically humming with happiness as he came over to me, carrying his bag and guitar. If Toby was the kind to skip, he’d be doing it. The man was in his own little world, clearly happy.

“How was the project?” I asked, wiping my sweat off my body as I tried to cool off a little bit more before heading inside.

“Amazing. We are going to destroy that class when we have to sing. It’s going to be amazing. Cadence is truly a genius. I never got to work with someone who cared as much as she did about the work she was doing. She has true respect for her creations.”

I smiled. He wasn’t wrong. She was definitely talented, and I’d seen the video he took of her when she sang her last project in class. Cadence could move anyone to tears. She felt raw and real when listening to her singing voice.

“You like her a lot, don’t you?” I asked.

Toby didn’t answer right away, rubbing the back of his neck as he watched the rest of the team retreat back into the school. “Enough to scare me, frankly.”

I bit my lip, wondering how to ask, but also scared. But this was Toby. We’d been friends since pretty much kindergarten. My stomach still tightened as I asked, “Enough to date her.”

His eyes widened as he looked back at me.

“Is this going back to what Seth said?”

“I don’t know. I’m just trying to understand what’s going on,” I answered truthfully.

“What about you? Do you like her enough to want to date her?” Now Toby seemed anxious about my answer too.

I thought about Cadence. Cadence’s existence was warm. Yeah, she was standoffish and when it came to strangers, felt even cold, but I couldn’t wipe the memory of her expression when she was with Calvin. And eventually, with us. She was warm all around. Attentive. Caring. Frankly, whenever I wasn’t with her, she consumed my thoughts, enough for me to even miss a kick during practice.

“I want to be with her. In any way that she’ll let me.”

“Seth talked about dating her.”

Again, a weird feeling wormed its way into me, an unpleasant one, but I pushed it back.

“Have you met his aunt before?” I asked.

“No. Frankly, I forget she even exists half the time. I know he talks to her often, but doesn’t she live a couple hours away?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled and jerked my head back to the locker room so I could grab my things. “I looked it up briefly.”

“What?”

“Relationships with multiple people. I never thought it was a thing. It’s still weird to me,” I said. “But it’s more common than I thought. Like a lot more.”

“You’re really considering it?” Toby asked, looking surprised.

“He brought up an interesting topic, so I looked more into it.” My face felt hot with embarrassment. I also learned how dangerous it was to look up things like that on the internet. There was no unseeing some of what I found. “There’s communities out there, support groups so to speak for people in relationships like that. Safe places on the internet for them to go for advice.”

“Seriously?” Toby seemed interested in the idea. Maybe I needed to warn him about what not to search just to save him the embarrassment.

We kept talking about the people with multiple partners as I grabbed my things and we headed out to the parking lot. But then our conversation came to a complete stop as we realized how many people were flooding the parking lot, police lights flashing, but with no sound.

My stomach dropped as I glanced around.

“What the hell is going on?” Toby asked with wide eyes. “Hey, isn’t that Davies.”