Though he wanted a cigarette—or at least something to do with his hands—he figured walking down the crowded street with a lollipop in his mouth would only draw more attention to himself. So he forced himself to wait. Just like he forced himself to wait before he started thinking about what she’d said to him. About it not being his fault. About him being a better man than he thought he was. About—
He cut the thoughts off even as he sped up, determined to make it to his car before he freaked out completely. He’d almost made it, too, the entrance to the parking garage in sight when he noticed three guys who looked like they were still in high school elbowing one another and nodding in his direction.
Fuck. That’s what he got for walking around downtown Austin with his very recognizable tats on full display.
He started to speed up, but it was too late and he knew it. There was no way he was going to make it to his car before they got to him, so fuck it. Just fuck it.
He ducked inside the entrance to the parking garage so at least they wouldn’t be on the street, drawing more attention, and then waited the thirty seconds he figured it would take the kids to catch up. Turned out they must have been all but running, because they got there in fifteen.
The first one spotted him and stopped in his tracks, and Wyatt watched—amused despite himself—as first one, then the other, of his friends careened straight into his back.
He waited for them to say something, but they didn’t. Instead, they just stood there, eyes wide and mouths open, and stared at him. And stared at him. And stared at him.
Because it was getting awkward—and because he didn’t know how long it would be before someone else came along—he stepped forward. “Hey, how are you? I’m Wyatt Jennings.”
“I know. I mean, I recognize you. I mean, I know. You’re Wyatt Jennings.”
He laughed and held out a hand. “Pretty much what I just said, kid.”
“Right, of course. Sorry.” He blushed wildly, but still made no move to shake his hand. Wyatt was starting to think he was going to be left hanging when one of the guy’s friends nudged him hard.
“Oh, um, I’m Dylan. Dylan Waters,” he said as he finally grabbed on to Wyatt’s hand and pumped it enthusiastically. “And these are my friends and bandmates, Billy Freeman and Jace Brooks.”
“Nice to meet you guys,” Wyatt said as he wrestled his hand away from Dylan’s very enthusiastic grip and extended it to first Billy and then Jace. “So you guys have a band?”
“Yeah,” Billy said. “Big Bad Wolf. We’re just starting out, but yeah. We’re trying to put a show together, get some gigs.”
“That’s awesome. What kind of music do you play?” Judging from their appearances, he was going with punk.
“Rock,” Dylan said. “Like you. We even cover a couple of your songs.”
“Oh, yeah? Which ones?”
“‘Entice’ and ‘Drowning.’”
“Really?” His eyebrows shot up in surprise, since both were solid songs that had performed well, but they were definitely not Shaken Dirty’s biggest hits. “I wrote both of those.”
“Believe me,” Billy told him, “we know. Jace reminds us of that fact pretty much twenty times a day. He’s like, seriously, your biggest fan. He worships you and bores us daily with endless facts.”
“I mean, we’re all huge fans,” Dylan said, glaring at Billy. “It’s not like he actually bores us, ‘cuz we could pretty much talk about Shaken Dirty all day, but—”
Wyatt laughed. “It’s okay. I promise, I didn’t take offense. I’d get bored, too, if I had to hear about myself all day. So much better to just play music, huh?”
He grinned at Jace, tried to invite him to share the joke. But the guy just stood there, blushing wildly and looking at everything and everyone but him. Poor kid.
“Who else do you cover?” he asked, hoping to give him something easy to talk about.
No such luck. Jace just kept staring through him like he was a ghost or something.
“We don’t. Other than your stuff, we pretty much write all our own songs,” Dylan told him. “Or Jace does. He’s the big songwriter of the group.”
“Oh, yeah? That’s really cool. What are you working on now, Jace?”
Jace squeaked in response, but still didn’t look at him.
Dylan rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Sorry, man. I think he’s in shock. Seriously, like you don’t understand how important you are to him. He knows every Shaken Dirty song, every drum fill, every riff. He spends hours every day just wailing on the drums, trying to be as fast and as steady as you are.”
“Yeah, but that’s never going to happen.” Jace spoke up for the first time. “I pretty much suck.”
“You do not, man!” Billy sounded totally indignant. “You’re really good. Not Wyatt Jennings good yet, but who the fuck is?” He turned to Wyatt. “I’m serious, man. It’s like he’s a different person when he’s behind his kit. He’s really fucking amazing.”
“I bet.” Wyatt studied the kid. There was something about Jace that reminded him of himself at that age—which scared him a little, considering how he’d ended up. Then again, maybe if he’d had something to hang on to until he’d found Shaken Dirty, things would have turned out differently. “You know, I’d like to see that. Do you guys have any gigs coming up?”
For a second it looked like all three of them had swallowed their tongues. Then Dylan blurted out, “Actually, we have one at the end of next week. It’s at this bar called The Spotlight. It’s pretty sketchy, but—”
“I know the place. In fact, we played it a long time ago, back when we were just starting out.”
“No way!” Billy crowed. “No fucking way!”
Wyatt shrugged. “We all started somewhere, dude.”
“Yeah, but I’m going to be singing on the same stage that Ryder Montgomery sang on!” Dylan whooped. “I can’t fucking believe it.”
“Believe it. Though, it’s been years. I can’t guarantee they haven’t switched the stage out—”
“If you’d been to the place recently, you’d know they haven’t switched anything out in a long, long time.”
“Same old Spotlight, then,” Wyatt said with a laugh. “That place was decrepit when we played it.”
“Still is,” Billy told him. “Only worse, I bet. If you actually come see us, you can check the place out for yourself.”
“You’re right.” He pulled his phone out of his back pocket, pulled up the calendar app Jared was constantly jawing at him about using. “What day next week?”
“Friday,” Dylan answered. “We start playing around nine.”
He entered the information, only fucking up the time twice. “Cool. I’ll drop by.”
“I can’t believe this!” Billy shouted, his voice echoing off the cement walls of the garage. “I can’t fucking believe this!”
“You’re the best, man,” Dylan gushed. “Seriously. The best, ever.”
“I’m really not,” he told them. “You’ve seen me play. I figure it’s only fair that I see you.”
“You’re not really coming.” For the first time, Jace was looking him square in the face.
“What the fuck, man?” Dylan asked, elbowing him. “He said he’d come.”
“You’re just trying to get rid of us, right?” Jace asked. “You don’t really mean it. You’re not actually coming.”
Wyatt might have taken offense at the kid’s words if he hadn’t sounded so desperate. So lost. So much like he was trying to convince himself not to get his hopes up because he couldn’t stand the disappointment if it didn’t pan out. It was just one more way Wyatt saw himself in the skinny teenager standing in front of him.
“Jace!” Billy hissed. “What are you doing? He—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Wyatt interrupted as he stepped closer to Jace, getting in his face until the kid had no choice but to look at him. “You don’t know me, so I get it. Why should you trust me, especially considering when I first r
ealized you’d spotted me, I thought seriously about sprinting for my car to get away from you?” Dylan squawked a little, and he shrugged. “What can I say? It’s been a rough morning.”
He turned back to Jace. “But I don’t say things unless I mean them. That’s not the kind of guy I am. And I don’t promise to do something if I’m not going to do it.” He’d broken enough promises when he was using. It was a matter of honor to him that he wasn’t going to do that anymore. “I’m going to be at your show next Friday, and I’m going to listen to you drum. So you better be prepared to rip my fucking head off with your fills. You got that?”
Jace turned white—pure, blank-sheet-of-paper white—and for a second Wyatt thought the kid was actually going to pass out. But then he nodded said, “Yeah. I can do that.”
Wyatt grinned at him. “I figured you could. Now, I need to get going. So if you guys want a picture—”
“That’s okay,” Jace said, cutting off his friends even as they reached for their cameras. “We don’t need one.”
“Uh, yeah we do,” Dylan said, looking at him like he was insane. “‘Receipts or it didn’t happen.’”
“It happened,” Jace said softly. “Besides, when he comes to the show Friday night, you can take a picture with us.”
“The fuck?” Billy demanded, turning almost as white as Jace had. “He didn’t mean it, Wyatt. He’s just insane or something.”
Wyatt was laughing too hard to answer him. When he could finally speak, he nodded at Jace. “Okay. That seems fair. I show up to hear you play and you take a picture with me that I can post on Twitter and shit and tell everybody that I got to meet the guys from Big Bad Wolf.”
Billy elbowed Dylan, whispered loudly, “He remembered our name.” Dylan nodded like a crazy man, and Jace just stood there grinning.
“It was nice meeting you guys. Have a good day.” He gave them a little salute, then headed up the ramp toward his car.
About a minute later, he heard feet pounding up the ramp after him. He turned to find Jace running full out in an effort to catch up to him.
“What’s up, Jace?” he asked as the kid finally stopped a couple of feet from him.
It took him a couple of seconds to catch his breath, but then he said, “I really do think you’re the greatest drummer ever. I’ve listened to everybody—Dave Grohl, Keith Moon, Phil Collins. They’re great. I mean, some of them are really phenomenal. But you’re better.”
“Dude.” Wyatt reared back a little, humbled by this kid’s support. “That’s pretty serious company you’ve got me in. I mean, I appreciate the compliment—”
“No. You are. I’m not just blowing smoke up your ass. Your drum fills are genius. Pure genius. They make the whole fucking song, set the whole thing up. Because they don’t just fill, don’t just keep the beat. They get inside the song, mirror the emotions and the tension of it so perfectly. Believe me, I know—I’ve spent years watching you, learning from you, trying to do what you do. It’s the hardest fucking thing in the world, and you make it look effortless.”
“It’s not effortless—”
“I know it’s not. Believe me, I know that better than anyone. But the way you hit the sticks, the way you beat that shit out, it’s fucking brilliant. The way you’ve fought to get clean…I’ve been sober thirty days myself, because of you. So I just wanted to say thanks. Thanks for stopping to talk to us even though you didn’t want to. Thanks for saying you’ll come to our gig. And thanks for being the guy who made me want to be a better drummer and a better person. If I hadn’t heard you when I was twelve, I probably never would have wanted to play the drums. And if I didn’t have them to bang away at…” He shook his head. “Shit. I probably wouldn’t still be here. So thanks. For everything. The way you drum, the way you got off drugs despite the life…You’re an inspiration, man.”
It was Wyatt’s turn to be speechless. “Jace—”
“Don’t worry about it.” The kid shook his head, grinned. “Have a good rest of the day.” And then he was gone, sprinting back down the ramp toward his friends and leaving Wyatt standing there with his mouth hanging open. He was an inspiration? Not just a sick drummer but an inspiration? What the hell was he supposed to think about that?
When he finally got in his car, he’d planned on going to Quinn’s house. Planned on talking things out with the guys once and for all, so that they understood where he was coming from. Why he had to leave the band.
Instead, he’d driven to his apartment on autopilot, his conversations with Poppy and Jace running through his head on a loop. And now, here he was, standing in front of his drum kit like he was scared of it or something. Like he was some kind of pussy who’d lost his nerve.
The thought was enough to have him crossing the room, to have him sliding his hand over the cool red aluminum of his drums, the smooth plastic of the skins. He had a few different kits—one for touring, one for home, and one for Quinn’s studio. This was the smallest of the kits, and the oldest, but it was also his favorite. An old school DW Jazz series, it only had three toms along with two crash and two ride cymbals to compliment the core kit of snare, bass, hi-hat and floor tom. The heads were mostly White Coated Emporers because he liked the crisp, yet smoky sound of them and his sticks were 5BXLs with acorn tips because nothing else had ever felt right in his hands.
He’d had this kit since almost the beginning of Shaken Dirty—had scrimped and saved every penny he could for it while he worked two bullshit jobs trying to pay for his stick breaking habit. Hell, he’d even given up his other, less healthy habits for six months back then, just so he’d have enough money for this kit.
If only money had kept being that tight, maybe he never would have developed an eighteen point a day heroin habit…
Shoving that thought out of his head—or at least as far out as it would go—he rubbed his thumb along the edge of one of the crash cymbals. It had been months since he’d played this kit; he’d been touring with his much more impressive and well-equipped Sonor SQ2 kit for a couple of years now, but there was just something about this DW kit that he loved. That took him back to what it used to be like, when life had been all about writing songs and making music instead of pleasing a record label that had crawled so far up his ass he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to get them out.
Then again, it had been months since he’d played any kit, really. He’d only played once since he’d gotten out of rehab—on stage at Antone’s the first night—and that had been for the band. For the crowd. For the show.
It seemed like he was always playing for one of those reasons. But as he stood there, running his hands over his prized hi-hat cymbal, Jace’s words came back to him. The way you hit the sticks, the way you beat that shit out…thanks for being the drummer that made me want to be a drummer. Without it…I probably wouldn’t still be here.
Fuck, he knew exactly what Jace had been talking about. Knew exactly how he felt when he’d said banging on the drums had saved his life. When had he lost touch with that? When had he gotten so caught up in the bullshit—in his head and with the label—that he’d forgotten what it felt like?
Once upon a time, his aunt had bought him his first drum kit as therapy and it had ended up saving his life, too. As he stood here, looking at one of his three beloved kits, he wondered—if he let them—if they’d do it again.
Because there was only one way to find out, he crossed to the bookshelf, where he kept dozens of extra sticks for when he needed them. He grabbed four, then shoved a couple into his back pocket in case he broke the first two before crossing back to his drums.
And then he was settling himself behind them, striking each a few times to make sure they were all in tune, all sounding like they were supposed to. They were, so he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and let the first song that came to his mind flow through his brain and out of his hands.
The song was “Seventeen Again,” one he’d written a couple of years back about choices and mistakes and roads not taken.
It had done well for them, had hung out on the top music charts for nearly six months, two of those at number one. It had always made him uncomfortable that this song was so popular—hell, it had even made him uncomfortable that the guys insisted on putting it on the album. Because it was so personal. So honest. So real, when so much of what he showed people was anything but.
He could still see Poppy’s face from earlier today, when she’d asked him if any of his bio was actually true. He’d been tempted to point her to this song, to tell her that every verse, every word, every note of it was him, laid bare for public consumption. But in the end, he hadn’t done it. Instead, he’d let her get inside his head and had spilled everything to her. Had told her things no one but the other members of Shaken Dirty knew. Things he hadn’t planned on ever telling another living soul. He still didn’t know why he’d done it, except maybe he’d wanted to push her away. He was falling for her, had been pretty much since he’d laid eyes on her, and when she’d pushed, he’d figured what the hell. He’d show her. He’d let her see just how fucked up he was and then she’d go running in the other direction.
Except she hadn’t done that, had she? No, she’d stuck instead. Had gotten right up in his face and made him look at things he hadn’t examined in way too long. Had tried to make him see things in a totally different light.
He didn’t know yet if she’d succeeded, didn’t know yet how he felt about what she’d said. But for the first time in longer than he could remember, he wanted to hold on to something, wanted to feel something for someone other than his bandmates.
For a man who’d spent years, decades, running from his emotions, it was a strange place to find himself. It scared him.
She scared him.
Eyes still closed, he laid down the first of the drum fills, adding a few extra flourishes because that’s how he was hearing it in his head. Played through the whole song from memory, then did it again and again, embellishing it a little more each time through.