Page 30 of Wylder and the Secret Rockstar
He cleared his throat, and she snapped her eyes to his. "What?"
His mouth opened as if he wanted to say something, but then his jaw tightened, and he closed the door, ignoring her presence as he set his school bag down and pulled out a notebook. "We should get started. The less time we have to spend together, the better."
"I couldn't agree more." Wylder hadn't thought this through. When preparing for Logan to get here, she'd piled all her unfolded clean clothes on her desk chair and pushed it into the closet. Now, the only place to sit was the bed she'd haphazardly made.
"You can sit." It was probably the nicest thing she'd said to him. Something about Logan just hit her wrong, and she could no longer convince herself it was because he wore his jerk of a brother's face or because she'd dated his other brother. Whatever bothered her was totally and completelyhim.
Logan perched awkwardly on the edge of her bed, as far from her as he could get. Wylder sat and drew her legs up under her. "So...." They said at the same time.
"Well, this is sufficiently awkward." Wylder didn't do awkward. She created it for other people, but she'd always gone through life not letting anything bother her enough to feel this crawling sensation.
Logan rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes looking anywhere but at her. They settled on the corner of the room, and she silently cursed, knowing exactly what he'd found.
Sliding his notebook off his lap, Logan scooted from the bed. "I didn't know you played drums."
How could he not? "You obviously don't follow my brother."
"What does that mean?"
"Ever heard of the bandAnonymous?"
He looked back over his shoulder. "Should I have?"
Relief flooded her. He didn't know. Logan Cook had to be the one person in this world who didn't know what she'd once been, and it felt darn good. "It was Beckett's band before he went all country. I was..." Wait, she knew that smile on his face. “You’re making fun of me.” Hadn’t he mentioned her playing with Beckett before?
He shrugged, and to his credit, he only looked a little smug.
At least, he didn't ask her to finish what she’d been saying. They both knew what she'd have said. She was Beckett's first drummer, his best according to the man himself. Videos ofAnonymousplaying bars they'd only booked with fake Id's were all over YouTube.
"Is this a Roland?" He looked at the back of the snare. "And not just a Roland. It's... Wow, Wylder Anderson, you must still have it if you have a kit like this."
What was it? The burning sensation even looking at a set of drums gave her? Yeah, she definitely had that. "How do you know drums?"
"I don't really. I mean, I've seen them around in Luke's recording studio."
Right, because just like her, he was rock star adjacent, his head full of useless knowledge of the business, his talent never quite matching up. It was easy to forget they actually had something in common when all they did was fight.
"Becks bought it for me." She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "He doesn't really look at how much something costs. I sometimes don't think he understands money." He didn't understand a lot of things. It was a good thing their cousin, Skye, managed his career. "I told him it was too much, but he doesn't really ever listen to me."
"I know that feeling." Logan shook his head with a laugh. When there wasn't scorn behind it, he had a nice laugh, soft like he was almost surprised something brought it out of him. "I have it from two directions. Luke is the superstar. Everything has always revolved around him. And Sebastian... He’s spent so much time managing Luke's career, enjoying that life, sometimes it seemed like the two of them were in it together."
"But now he's here."
He nodded. "Yeah... This... Leaving Nashville... It was for both of us."
She wanted to ask him why, to find out the reason Sebastian was here when he could be on tour with Luke, but voicing too many questions, too much interest would reveal more than she was willing to.
Logan ran a hand along one of the cymbals. "Back in the eighties when people started using electric drums, it was a disaster." He let out another laugh, and she leaned forward, wanting to hear it again. "No one could have guessed how integral they'd become to the music industry thirty years later." He turned back to face her, his eyes lighting up with interest. In the drums though, not in her.
Which was a good thing.
She hated him.
Right?
"Have you ever recorded anything with the set? Did you know each drum can be hooked into a separate channel on your audio interface?"
"Yes." She crossed her arms, wanting the talk about her drums to end. "I did know that. But no, I haven't recorded anything."
