Page 55 of Wylder and the Secret Rockstar
“Get it together, Wylds.” She pushed a hand through her short blue hair and reached for her phone. It took her a few minutes to figure it out, but she docked her phone with the drum kit and hit record as she started to sing the opening lyrics to the song that still didn’t have a name.
Wylder worked all morning, singing, fleshing out the beat of the music on her drums, and writing out the music notes she really hoped made sense. She wasn’t the best at writing music in the technical sense. To her, music came from the soul, and she didn’t often write sheet music for others to play the songs she wrote. Beckett was better at that stuff.
“Ugh!” Wylder groaned in frustration laying her head down on the edge of her drums. She was out of practice and wasn’t sure if she was making progress or making a mess. She needed an opinion. Eyeing her phone, she couldn’t decide if she should call the one person who could help. She could only imagine all the ‘I told you so’ crowing Becks would do when he found out she was playing again.
But the doofus was a musical genius. If anyone could help her it was Beckett.
With a huge sigh, she snatched up her phone and called her brother before she could second guess herself again.
“Hey, Wylds.” Her cousin Skye answered Becks’ phone. “He’s in the studio, but we’re about to take a break if you don’t mind talking to me for two minutes.” Skye was Beckett’s manager, and she was the only one who could keep him on schedule.
“Oh, hey.” Wylder tried not to sound disappointed. She loved her cousin, but as she tapped her drumstick against her leg, she started to lose her nerve.
“How’s school, kiddo?” Skye asked. “I hear you’ve got a great new teacher.”
“Oh, um, yeah I supposed he’s pretty good.”
“I’m talking about Mrs. Shepherd, the Contemporary Music teacher.”
“Oh, right.” Wylder’s mind had immediately gone to Sebastian, but there was no way Skye knew he was teaching at Defiance Academy. Skye knew all about her relationship with Sebastian—more than Beckett did even—and if Beckett had told her he was now her teacher, she’d have called in concern. For some reason, Skye thought she had to look out for Wylder as much as she had to watch out for Beckett. But Wylder didn’t need a keeper. She could handle her emotions on her own.
“Pamela Shepherd is a legend in the music industry. She’s managed some of the biggest names out there. That lady knows her stuff. You have no idea how lucky you are to learn from her. You soak up all you can get from her and then come back here and teach us everything.”
“Yeah, she’s great.” Wylder’s knee bounced impatiently.
“Oh, here’s Becks. Bye, Wylder.” Skye handed off the phone to her brother.
“Wylds? How’s it going?” Beckett hollered into the phone, making Wylder wince. He was always a little bit deaf when he came out of the recording studio.
“Not so loud, bro. I need my ears.”
“Oh, sorry. To what do I owe the pleasure of your call? Not that you ever need a reason to call me.”
Wylder took a deep breath. It shouldn’t be this hard to talk about music with her brother. She’d grown up talking music with him.
“Spit it out, Wylder. Who do I need to beat up? It’s not Sebastian, is it?”
Wylder snorted at the very idea of Becks in a fight to defend her honor. “No. It hasn’t come to that. I was just wondering … um … Can I get your professional opinion on something?”
“Professional opinion?” She could just imagine the way his ears perked up at that.
“Yeah, I uh, I have to write a song for that awful class you signed me up for, and I need an opinion on a track. It’s awful, but it’s been a while, you know?”
She waited for his obnoxious big brother speech about how he was so proud of her and he knew she had it in her, yada yada yada.
“Yeah, I can give it a listen. Can you send it to my phone?”
Wylder fumbled with her phone, her hands shaking as she hit send. “Just sent. You um … want to call me back whenever?”
“Nah, I’ve got a break, I’ll check it out now. Hang on a sec.”
Wylder smiled. She knew he was making a monumental effort to not make a big deal out of this, which in itself was a big deal. She appreciated it. It wasn’t everyday Becks passed up an ‘I told you so’ moment.
“Wylds?” Becks came back on. “I found a quiet corner, I’m putting you on speaker.”
“Okay.” Her hands twisted in her lap as her track began to play, and she heard herself sing the lyrics she’d written with Logan. Wylder bobbed her head to the beat, hearing all the mistakes and everything wrong with the rhythm and the timing of her voice. Why had she bothered her brother with this? He probably thought it was awful.
“Wylds? This is great! Did you write this yourself?”
