Page 1 of Wylder and the Secret Rockstar
1
Returning to Defiance Academy wasn’t supposed to feel like coming home. Wylder Anderson was a rebel, different from the prim and proper rich kids who attended the elite academy—and most of them let her know it. She didn’t fit in, but then, she’d never wanted to.
Senior year. Finally. It took her a second attempt at her junior year but she’d made it.
Wylder tuned out Devyn, her roommate for the second year in a row, and surveyed her belongings. There were perks to being a senior, one of which was no longer sharing a single shoebox-sized room with another girl. Now, they got a suite. Each of them had their own bedroom and shared a small sitting room and a bathroom in between.
“Wylder, you brought too much stuff.” Devyn surveyed the bags Wylder had thrown on the couch.
Again, Wylder didn’t listen as she wondered if this year would be different from last. Last year, she’d come to this school after she was expelled from Twin Rivers High and had zero interest in making new friends. Her best friend had graduated months before and moved to Nashville after falling in love with her brother—ew—leaving Wylder alone, just like she always told people she wanted.
And then she’d formed an unlikely friendship with a senior, Kenny, the very last person at Defiance Academy she could imagine being friends with. After forcing him to fall in love with the president’s son—yes,thatpresident—she’d moved on to two junior boys who refused to see how much they liked each other.
Just call her the gay matchmaker. She’d had her boys and didn’t need anyone else.
Second semester, the school’s resident ballerina—a loner like her—was helpless without Wylder guiding her in the ways of bucking authority and falling in love.
Though, through all her matchmaking endeavors, Wylder had never been in love herself. Maybe this past summer in Nashville was her first foray into love, how did one recognize it? Sebastian Cook. A sigh wound through her, and she ignored the odd look Devyn gave her.
Explaining her summer affair with Bash to the likes of Devyn would be just as useless as explaining her resistance to using the drums sitting in the corner of the room to her brother, country star Beckett Anderson.
But she’d played with him first when most of the world hadn’t even heard his name. Before he left her in Twin Rivers all alone, she’d been a part of his music with him.
Now, music no longer wanted anything to do with her.
She had to get out of that room. Five minutes here, and she already couldn’t stand being cooped up.
“This year is going to be epic,” she mumbled to herself, trying to force her heart to believe the words.
She picked up speed, running up the stairs into the boys’ hall and heading for the room number Killian had texted her before. The school didn’t let him share a suite with Diego now that they were a thing, but she assumed Diego would be in there anyway, and she needed his innocence to put a smile on her face and remind her she was here with people who loved her.
Without knocking, she pushed open the door to Killian’s suite. “Where’s my favorite tech geek?” Said with the utmost affection, of course.
But it wasn’t Diego staring back at her. No, that would be the face of the boy she’d been in love with the last two years. Not a real kind of love, more of a fangirl love that faded the moment she’d met Luke Cook and heard the jerky words coming out of his mouth.
They say to never meet your idols. Turns out, whoevertheywere was right. Because meeting the popstar a couple months ago at Beckett’s recording studio burst the bubble of her infatuation.
Luke looked at her like he was expecting an answer to a question she hadn’t heard. His lips tugged down. “Are you looking for Killian? He didn’t strike me as a geek so much as a jock. Oh, you mean his boyfriend? I met Diego too. That, I can see.”
Wylder finally found her voice. “You don’t get to make fun of my friend. Only I call Diego a geek.”
“Noted.” He lifted one brow.
Enough. Wylder couldn’t do this weird staring thing anymore. “What are you doing here, Luke? Don’t you have a tour happening?” He was the last person she’d expected to invade Defiance Academy, and she didn’t want the reminder of his brother, Sebastian hanging over her. Did Luke know about her and his brother? Had Sebastian sent him? She hated that she didn’t hate the thought.
Luke’s brow furrowed. “Hey, I know you. Wylder Anderson, right? You’re the one who yelled at Luke for being a jerk.”
“Wait.” It made sense now. “You’re Logan.” Luke’s identical twin brother. And man, were they identical. Everything about them was the same—she just hoped for Killian’s sake his roommate wasn’t at all like his twin in personality. She squinted at him, looking for the subtle differences. His hair might be a shade lighter, and his eyes not quite as angry, yet there was an intensity he shared with his brother. That didn’t explain why he was here.
“I get that look a lot. Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not Luke.”
“So he’s on tour, and you got stuck here?” She knew how that felt.
“Pretty much.” Logan returned to unpacking a box of books. “But you would know what that’s like, having Beckett for a brother, right?”
“Yeah.” Wylder nodded, not looking at him.
“Killian and Diego went to get coffee. They should be back in a few minutes if you want to hang here.”
