Wylder and the Rising Rockstar (Reluctant Rockstars Book 3)

by Michelle MacQueen

  Wylder couldn’t help feeling like she’d let him down. “Sorry this was such a bad idea.”

  “No.” He pressed a kiss to the side of her neck. “It was perfect.”

  She bit back a smile. Perfect. Okay.

  Wylder had never been more thankful to be a senior with her own room.

  She and Logan shucked off their cold weather gear as fast as they could, leaving it scattered around her room before jumping onto the bed and piling blankets on top of them.

  She couldn’t remember ever being so cold, and it felt like they’d brought the cold inside with them.

  Her shivering stilled as Logan’s warmth seeped into her. Then she let out a groan.

  Logan turned onto his side to face her. “What’s wrong?”

  She sighed. “We didn’t stop in the dining hall to refill the thermoses.”

  “I can go do that.” He lifted the blankets.

  “Don’t you dare.” She yanked him back down. “You’re my warming pad.”

  He laughed and draped an arm over her stomach. “Then what are we going to do?”

  Without thinking, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed. When someone answered she grinned. “Yes, is this the coffee delivery service?”

  Logan lifted a brow, and she shot him a just-go-with-it look.

  “Two large coffees. My usual. Delivered right to my room. Yes, payment will be made in full, and you’ll be keeping two very cool people from freezing to death.” Order placed, she ended the call.

  “This school has a coffee delivery service?” Logan stared at her like she held all the school’s secrets.

  “No.” Wylder snorted. “That was Killian. Diego is off at some study group tonight, and his next game isn’t until Friday, so I knew he’d be around.”

  “Does anyone ever say no to you?”

  “Not usually.” She wouldn’t tell him what the cost of Killian’s service would be.

  A few minutes later, a knock sounded on the door.

  “Come in, oh favorite one,” Wylder called. Killian pushed the door open, carrying two large travel cups of coffee. “Killian James, I think I’m in love with you. Don’t tell my boyfriend.”

  Logan accepted his coffee. “It’s okay. Your boyfriend is in love with him too.” They shared a grin.

  “Boyfriend?” Killian’s eyebrows shot up as a smile played on his lips. “That’s new.”

  Wylder’s face flushed as chatter came to them through the open door. Will poked his head in, his cheeks going red when he saw Wylder and Logan together. “Uh, Killer, ready to go?”

  “Killian.” Wylder’s stare shot lasers at him. “Did you bring the entire hockey team here?”

  He pushed open the door to show the team crowded into the common room.

  Wylder pulled the blanket over her head. It wasn’t until Logan joined her under the blanket she spoke. “I’m going to kill him,” she whispered.

  “I know a guy,” Logan shot back.

  “Really?”

  “No, not really. What, you think my brother moonlights as an assassin?”

  “He could.”

  “Guys.” Killian laughed. “I’m just going to take my payment now and head to watch film with the team.”

  Wylder slowly poked her head out. “Go ahead.”

  “Logan,” he called. “I’ll return the backpack.”

  “Wait, what?” Logan yanked the blanket down, but Killian was already gone. “Wylder, did you just trade all our pizza for coffee?”

  “No.” She sipped her coffee and averted her eyes. “Okay, yes, but the alternative was us getting out of our cocoon.”

  “The dining hall closed half an hour ago. Now what are we going to eat?”

  “I still have those protein bars.” She gave him an innocent smile. “Yay chocolate?”

  “It’s a good thing I like you.” He pulled her closer, his lips skimming her ear. “Want to know why?”

  “Mmhmm.” She couldn’t form a single word.

  “You’re confident.”

  “Loud,” she corrected.

  “Feisty.”

  “Argumentative.”

  “You never let anyone question who you are.” He kept talking before she could contradict him again. “You barely even blinked when handed the reins to a protest. After what you did today, I actually believe I can get on that stage at the review and not throw up. I want to be as brave as you, Wylder.”

  She turned in his arms to look at him, setting her coffee on the side table. Her fingers traced the contours of his face, sliding around the back of his neck.

  He wasn’t finished. “And you’re honest, probably the most honest person I’ve ever met.”

  “No, I’m not.” The words slipped out, and she pulled her hand back, curling her fingers in. She hadn’t been honest with him in a while, and that knowledge threatened to suck the life right out of her. She couldn’t be Logan’s girlfriend until she told him the truth.

  Her parents were wrong. Becks was wrong. Logan deserved to know where his twin was, he needed to know Luke was okay.

  “Logan?”

  “Hmm?”

  He looked so content, so happy, her gut clenched at how she had to break the bubble they’d been in all day. Today was a good day. It had started with Logan, and it would end with Logan.

  The next few moments would define how this day was remembered. The bad always overrode the good. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “I’m listening.” And he was. She could tell. Logan’s eyes held to hers, ready to hear whatever she had to say.

  “Luke—“ Her words cut off when a loud knocking on the common room door filled the silence.

  “Hold that thought. I’ll get it.” Logan slid from under the blankets and walked into the common room.

  Wylder’s entire body deflated. She’d come so close. She expected Logan to return quickly, and when he didn’t, warning bells went off in her head.

  Reluctantly leaving the warmth of her bed, she opened her door, surprised to see Ms. Jones standing in the common room. The faculty and administration made it a point not to enter the dorms, and Wylder could tell by her face something was wrong.

  “What is it?” She joined Logan.

  Ms. Jones looked between them. “I stopped by Logan’s room and was told he’d be here.”

  Logan wrapped an arm around Wylder like he needed her to hold him up. “Sebastian was in an accident.”

  Wylder’s eyes widened. “Is he—"

  “He’s hurt,” Ms. Jones said. “We don’t know how badly yet, but he is alive. He was driving back from Nashville this evening.”

  Logan nodded, his face showing no emotion. “He left yesterday after classes got out to go meet with my uncle. They’re still looking for Luke. I didn’t expect him back until tomorrow.”

  Ms. Jones gave him a sympathetic look. “He’s at Riverpass Medical. I’ve been asked if you can go and thought I’d bring you myself.”

  “Wylder too?” Logan’s voice held a desperate note like he needed her to say yes.

  “I’m sorry—"

  “Please.”

  The headmistress looked at him for a moment before nodding. “Very well. You’ll need the support. Grab your coats and I’ll call Wylder’s parents to let them know.”

  On the way out the door, Logan dialed Luke, probably knowing he wouldn’t answer. When the voicemail picked up, he spoke. “I don’t know where you are, Luke, but Bash has been hurt. This isn’t about you and me right now. He’s always been there for us. If you care about anything other than yourself anymore, get to Ohio. He’s at Riverpass Medical.” He hung up without another word.

  Wylder didn’t know what exactly was wrong with Sebastian, but she couldn’t help picturing the smiling man she’d met over the summer as Ms. Jones uttered words like “possible internal bleeding” and “head injury.”

  She gripped Logan’s hand harder, not wanting to let go.

  11

  Wylder had never spent much tim
e in a hospital. She’d been lucky that way, she guessed. She’d never had to deal with injuries to her parents, to her brother. When her birth mother died, she hadn’t even known it was happening.

  So, it was perfectly explainable that for once in her life, she didn’t know what to say. Right? That the moment she saw Sebastian lying in the hospital bed, all thoughts left her brain, leaving her to stare at him like a useless fool, unable to help Logan make sense of this, unable to comfort him.

  She was his girlfriend, and she had nothing to say.

  Sebastian had been on his way back from Nashville early, but they didn’t know why yet. Why couldn’t he have waited until the morning? Maybe then he wouldn’t be lying here. So much that happened in life was up to chance. Sebastian had to leave at the exact moment he did to be in the perfect position for the Riverpass teenager to slam into his car, forcing it off the highway and into a ditch.

  Ms. Jones had explained to them the car hadn’t flipped, thankfully, but the windshield shattered, and Sebastian suffered some pretty severe injuries. A broken arm that now sat in a cast. A concussion from the airbag. They’d done tests to check for further trauma and internal bleeding.

  As Wylder and Logan approached Sebastian’s bed, a doctor stood to the side. His voice reached them. “You were lucky, Sebastian. We found no signs of internal bleeding, and your head trauma seems to be limited to a pretty nasty concussion. I don’t want you falling asleep tonight. Do you have someone who will be with you to keep an eye on you? You shouldn’t be alone.”

  Logan dropped Wylder’s hand and rushed forward. “He has me. I’ll stay with him. So, he’ll be discharged?”

  The doctor turned his gaze on Logan. “And you would be?”

  “My brother.” Sebastian offered Logan a smile. “You’re here.”

  “Of course, I’m here, you numb skull. You were in a car accident.”

  “It really isn’t that bad. I’ll be fine in no time.” Sebastian tried to sit up, and the doctor put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Not so fast. We want to keep you a few more hours for observation before sending you home.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Bash.” Wylder hadn’t meant to speak, and Sebastian’s eyes snapped to her, noticing her for the first time.

  “Miss Anderson is right, though I wouldn’t have said it in those words.” The doctor’s eyes crinkled as he smiled.

  Wylder sighed. How was it this man recognized her and not Logan? Oh yeah, Becks was royalty in Twin Rivers and Riverpass. So, by extension, that made her a princess.

  “I’ll leave you in your brother’s hands, Sebastian.” The doctor patted his non-broken arm. “Don’t try to stand.”

  Sebastian rolled his eyes before wincing in pain.

  Logan sat on the corner of his bed. “How are you really, Bash?”

  Sebastian looked from Wylder to Logan and sighed. “My head hurts like no pain I’ve ever experienced. My arm is killing me. They should have just sawed the thing off.”

  Wylder smiled at that. At least Sebastian hadn’t lost his sense of humor. “You on pain killers?”

  “Ibuprofen.”

  Logan nodded, approval shining in his eyes, and Wylder could’ve kicked herself for the question. Of course he’d have turned down narcotics. That was what addicts had to do. She tried to hide this knowledge from her face, but by the flash of anger in Sebastian’s eyes, she didn’t do it fast enough.

  He turned accusing eyes on Logan. “You told her.”

  Logan rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, bro… I did it for you. You were still mooning over her, and she needed to know why it was so important we didn’t mess up this second chance being at the academy has given us.”

  The anger faded from Sebastian, and his eyes narrowed. “I was not mooning.”

  Wylder totally didn’t want to interrupt the brother moment, but she also didn’t want to hear all of this. Without thinking about it, she put a hand on Logan’s back. Sebastian’s eyes zeroed in on that hand, and she removed it. “I’m going to go grab a coffee. Anyone want one?”

  “Yes.” Sebastian’s jaw clenched.

  “No.” Logan pointed at him. “You have a concussion. She isn’t bringing you coffee.” He stood and approached Wylder, dropping his voice. “Sorry about him. I should have told him you knew.”

  “It’s okay.” She slipped her hand into his without considering what Sebastian would see. “How do you know about concussions?”

  “Luke…” He shook his head. “He got one on stage last year and still insisted on finishing the concert.”

  “Because I don’t leave my fans hanging.”

  Wylder knew that voice. She closed her eyes, knowing this was the moment her lies came to bite her. Was an omission a lie?

  Yes, yes it was. There was no getting out of this one.

  Logan’s entire body tensed, and Wylder turned to see Luke, his hair a mess, but his eyes clear as he looked at his twin.

  He ran a hand through his hair, making it stand further on end. “How’s Bash?”

  Logan’s jaw tightened. “Nice to see you too, brother.” He swallowed down the words Wylder knew he wanted to say and pointed behind him. “He’s there.”

  Luke nodded and walked past them in silence.

  Logan released a breath. “How is he here?” He rubbed his eyes. “Was he finally coming to see us when I called? I don’t understand.”

  Wylder lifted her chin, taking in the glassy quality of Logan’s eyes, the way his breath rasped past his lips. This boy… how had she fallen so hard for this boy? So hard she needed him to know the truth, to know everything she’d kept from him. She hadn’t meant to keep Luke’s secret. There’d never seemed like a good time.

  Until now, Logan seemed like he’d almost been… happy. And she hadn’t wanted to ruin that, to ruin them. But that wasn’t fair to a boy who’d always relied on his brothers and no one else. For so long, they’d only had each other. She knew how much it tore him up not to know where Luke was.

  They’d lost their music career, but they were supposed to still have each other.

  “Logan.” Wylder squeezed his hand. “Let’s give Luke a moment with Sebastian and step outside. There’s something I need to tell you.”

  He let her lead him through the ER and out into the cold night. She shivered, and Logan tried to draw her close to warm her, but she didn’t deserve his warmth, not until he knew, so she pushed him away and walked ahead of him.

  “Wylder, what’s going on?”

  She walked past a couple of ambulances to where a green metal bench looked out on the circular drive. Taking a seat, she patted the open spot beside her.

  When Logan lowered himself at her side, she began. “I didn’t know he was there at first.”

  “Who—"

  “Please just let me get it out, and then you can yell at me.”

  He nodded.

  “At first, I thought my family was keeping something small from me. They wouldn’t answer my calls. Even Nicky avoided me, and that’s not like him. Becks, my parents. I started getting really angry. So, I decided to go home in the middle of the day. I just wanted to play my old drum set, to remember the girl I was. I was confused, Logan. By my family, by you. I didn’t want to have these feelings for you when I knew you didn’t feel the same.”

  “But I do.”

  “I know that now, and that’s why this sucks so much. I managed to get off campus and hitch a ride home with a friend. I figured no one would be there and I could just sit in the basement that had been my music room. Only… there was someone there.”

  Wylder buried her face in her hands, wishing this wasn’t the moment he lost faith in her. When everything between them had seemed so good. “It was Luke.”

  His eyes snapped to her, but she couldn’t look at him.

  “Becks convinced my parents to let him hide out from the media in Twin Rivers.”

  “And from his brothers.” Logan shot to his fee
t. “How long, Wylder? How long have you known?”

  “They all asked me to keep it a secret until Luke was ready to talk to you.”

  “How long?”

  “About two weeks.”

  Logan paced in front of her. “Two weeks where I didn’t know if my brother was dead or if he’d taken up orders in a monastery somewhere. He’s been fifteen minutes away staying with the parents of the girl I lo—" He shook his head. There was no anger in his words, but the desperation, the sadness was almost worse. “And you knew.”

  He stopped pacing and dropped an accusing gaze to her.

  “Logan—“

  “No, it’s my turn to speak. Wylder.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and dropped down to the bench again. “I don’t care who asked you to keep this a secret, you should have told me.”

  “I know. I tried, so hard. I tried. I promise you I did. But Logan, things were good. With you, with us. For the first time, we’d stopped the pretense that we meant anything less than we do to each other. If I’d told you, all the drama would have come roaring back, and I wasn’t ready for that.”

  “Don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter what you were ready for or what I needed. He’s my brother, Wylder. If Becks was in trouble, if he was missing, what would that do to you?”

  “I’d never stop searching.”

  “Exactly. It would tear you apart. You could have ended that for me.” He stood again. “I think you should call an Uber.”

  “But Sebastian…”

  “He’s my brother, and you will no longer have anything to do with my family.”

  “Logan, no.” Tears hung in her lashes, and she blinked them away but more quickly replaced them.

  “We never should have gotten mixed up with you, Wylder. You were right in the beginning. You’re trouble, and we’ve had enough trouble to last a lifetime. We Cooks have learned the hard way the only people we can trust are each other.”

  “But—“

  “Go.” The word was more forceful this time. “Please, Wylder, just leave us alone.” There was a coldness in his voice now. “We were better off before any of us met you.” His steps took him back toward the door of the ER, but Wylder couldn’t move.