Page 44 of Wylder and the Almost Rockstar
He pushed out a breath. “I’m not really sure. The L.A. Morning Show wants me, but the thought of sitting there in front of an audience and lying to the world—again—kind of makes me want to puke.”
“Great visual.”
“I aim to please.” One corner of his mouth hitched up.
“And what will happen after this lie?”
“Well, I imagine Mrs. Shepherd will change my grade on our project to an F. Instead of everyone seeing Luke as a liar, it’ll be me. The privileged academy kid who thought he could do whatever he wanted.”
“That’s not fair.” Indignation rose in Wylder. “You rocked our project. You shouldn’t lose credit for that. It was you who stood on that stage and wowed everyone. You. Not Luke. You’ve been in the shadows your entire life. Don’t you want to be seen?”
His eyes met hers, and his lips turned down. “I… I don’t know. I don’t think I care if the world sees me. But my friends… the kind of friends I’ve never had before… I don’t want to hide from them.”
Wylder got the distinct impression he didn’t mean Killian and Diego. “I don’t think you could hide from me if you tried.”
Logan looked away, but she didn’t miss the twitch of his lips. “I think I do want another Oreo.”
“Fine.” Wylder groaned. “You’ve convinced me. Pass them over. We need to finish the evidence before Killian gets back, anyway.”
She took two and looked down at them. Two Oreos. One for eating and the other… She twisted it apart, reached over, and wiped the filling on Logan’s cheek.
His eyes snapped to her. “Did you seriously just wipe an Oreo on my face?” He scrubbed his cheek against his shoulder.
“Maybe. What are you going to do about it?”
Logan’s hand clenched around a cookie, and Wylder didn’t see what he was doing until he sprinkled crumbled Oreo into her hair. “Oh, now you’ve done it.” She lunged for him, shoving her second Oreo into his mouth as she pushed him to the ground.
He ate it and gave her a closed mouth grin.
With a final shove, she sat up. “And people say I’m trouble. You, Logan Cook, are like a sneaky kind of trouble.”
“Oh yeah? How so?”
“Well, first off, you make me be nice sometimes.”
“The horror.”
“Before you, I’d never stuffed anyone in the trunk of a car or gone swimming in the school’s lake.”
He laughed. “Don’t think that the second one was my fault.”
She turned serious for a moment. “Before you, I’d given up my drums.”
Logan smiled at that. “Before you, I’d never have stood on stage singing.”
Against all odds, the two of them had been good for each other. Heaven help her, Wylder was glad it was Logan at her side.
She looked sideways at him, taking in his patented smirk. She knocked her shoulder into his. “Stop smirking.”
“Why?” He bumped her back.
“Because it’s annoying.”
“Wylds, I don’t think you find me nearly as annoying as you try to.”
She didn’t answer that, because it was true. Logan was many things, but annoying wasn’t one of them. She enjoyed his sarcasm and their arguments. She loved that he could go from biting wit to deep conversations in the blink of an eye, that his words meant more than they appeared to mean on the surface. He wasn’t like anyone she’d known before.
Turning to face him again, she studied the lines of his face. The way his resting expression was one of contentment, unlike most people she knew who looked angry when they didn’t make conscious expressions. His eyes held so much of the pain he tried to hide.
