Page 15 of Wylder & the Rising Rockstar
“I don’t want to lose music again, all right.” She stared into the flickering flames in the fireplace.
“Lose music?” He frowned. “Explain.”
“After I left the girl band I was in for a while, I just lost it. I stopped playing. Music became this huge stumbling block for me. It wasn’t until Mrs. Shepherd’s class forced me to get back on that horse that I found it again. Since then, we’ve only performed together once. If I don’t get back out there now, I’m going to lose it all over again, and I’m not sure I’ll recover this time. Music is like air to me, Logan. I know you understand that. And when it’s gone…”
“It’s nevergone.” He reached for her hand across the table. “For people like us, music is life. It’s in our blood. The beat, the rhythm, it’s everywhere. We can’t escape it even if we try. You never lost the music, Wylder. You can’t lose it. It’s part of you. You just needed a little break for a while, but it was always there, just waiting for you to pick up your drumsticks again.”
His warm eyes burned into hers and, help her, she was feeling all sorts of warm zoomie feelings for him. Logan Cookgother. Really got her. He went with her crazy shenanigans, shaking his head in amusement. He knew she needed coffee before talking could happen. He watched her eat in amazement and tried his best to keep up with her and was willing to try foods he didn’t like. Hegother, and he was still here, holding her hand, plying her with snacks and coffee when she was upset.
Wylder had never felt like this before. Was this … the L-word?
She shot out of her seat. “I, um, forgot something in my room. I gotta go see a girl about a horse. I’ll see you at dinner.” She left her still too hot to drink mocha on the table and darted out of the cafe toward the dorms.
5
I have to go see a girl about a horse?It wasn’t until Wylder was safely ensconced in her—well, not warm but less than freezing—dorm room she realized what she’d said and what it meant.
“Oh my gosh,” she mumbled to herself, burying her face in her pillow. She’d just run out of the cafe telling Logan she had to go to the bathroom. Could there be a more Wylder thing to do?
Google was not her friend. She frantically typed in her phone, searching for another meaning to the phrase so she could tell herself he wouldn’t think that’s what she meant. Well, it was British, maybe he wouldn’t understand.
She groaned. He totally would. It didn’t specifically mean bathroom, but that was what people used it for. Oh man, she was so overthinking this. All she’d meant was she wanted to go find Devyn, and Devyn was into horses, but she didn’t need to see heraboutthe horses.
Why was she such an idiot when it came to Logan?
Oh right, because she had feelings for him. That was what caused her brain to short circuit sitting so close to him in that cafe. Feelings.
Gross.
They weren’t even really dating, but he was saying so many nice things, something she’d once thought was very un-Logan-like. Now she knew differently. Hewasnice, kind. He cared about other people, not just himself. He wouldn’t say it, but it killed him not knowing if Luke was okay.
And he cared about her. Why else would he try to make her feel better? Buthowdid he care about her? They were buddies who enjoyed letting their teenage hormones loose when in close proximity. She snorted at her own thought. It was such a Diego way to phrase that.
Devyn wasn’t even here, so that seeing girls about horses thing, couldn’t happen the way she’d meant it. She didn’t even knowwhyshe wanted to talk to Devyn. Despite their recent heart-to-heart, it wasn’t like they were girl-talk buddies. No, if she needed girl talk, that’s what Nicky was for.
She dialed his number, hoping it would be the first time all week he’d actually answer her call. When his voicemail picked up, she sighed. “Nick Nick, I need you.”
That was all she said before hanging up.
Wylder Anderson didn’t do warm feelings unless it was the feeling she got from doing the unexpected, surprising someone. Well, this time she surprised herself.
She flopped back on her bed with another groan. There were still a few hours of classes left, but she couldn’t stand the idea of sitting through a lecture on the doomed Anne Boleyn or watching Mr. Matheson solve for an imaginary number as if it was easy. Not when it felt like an animal had crawled into her stomach and was trying to get free.
Someone more romantic than her may have called them butterflies.
She went with nerves or the more gruesome thought of something clawing at her from the inside out.
“I have to get off this campus.” This feeling wasn’t new to her, being trapped at the Academy. With its high walls and the fact that living in the dorms meant never getting away from her classmates, it was like a fishbowl.
And she had to do it before Logan returned.
As a good little soldier, he’d probably headed to his next class, one of the few he didn’t have with her. So, he wouldn’t know she’d skipped out yet. He wouldn’t realize it until he walked into the dining hall for lunch and found her seat sadly empty. At least, she imagined him being sad, desperate to see her, ready to cry his eyes out because of her absence.
She snorted again. It was a very un-ladylike habit of hers.
“I need to hit something.” She stared accusingly at her electric drum kit. The sound they made was fantastic, they never fell over, cymbals crashing to the ground. There was an ease to playing them. But it wasn’t the same as an acoustic set, one that certainly wouldn’t have fit inside this room. Devyn would probably murder her if she tried to put one out in the common space, as would everyone else in the building.
But that was what she needed, something to remind her of who she was. Despite going way too long not talking to Becks or Nicky, despite her parents being weird, and whatever her stomach did around Logan being weirder, she was still Wylder Anderson. She was the girl who’d joined a band of seniors as a freshman and played in bars using her fake id, the one who threw a party in the empty school building after the public school kicked her out.
