“That sounds great. Really great, actually.” Logan helped himself to a baked potato and passed the platter to Wylder. “Can I bother you for a little more steak?” Logan asked in a serious tone.
“Sure, there’s plenty.” Her dad served him a few more slices.
“I just wanted to make sure I got some before Wylder hoovered it all. I’m starving.” He winked.
Her mom laughed. “Between her and her brother, we learned to pack our plates. In this house, if you don’t eat fast or hide it, you don’t eat.”
“I’d just like to know where she puts it.” Logan sliced into his potato. “She should be nine hundred pounds.”
“It’s so not fair.” Her mom shook her head.
“Okay, that’s enough picking on Wylder for one night.” She shoved a huge bite of steak into her mouth, happy to see a relaxed smile on Logan’s face.
“Having a famous brother is a challenge on a normal day,” her dad said. “But you’re dealing with unusual circumstances, Logan. We’ve seen all the gossip and speculation about you and your brother. And having Beckett as a son, we’re no stranger to being in the spotlight for things that are no one’s business. Back when Nicky and Becks first got together, we had news vans up and down our street for weeks. Poor Nicky couldn’t even go to work without getting swarmed by the press.”
“That’s never fun.” Logan sighed. “But how did they handle it? I remember hearing about some scandal about their relationship, but it just blew over eventually, didn’t it?”
“Becks made a mess of it at first,” Wylder said. “But once he figured it out, they made it work, his career recovered, and the press moved on to the next story.”
“It’s that way no matter who is in the spotlight,” her mom said. “But it will always pass.”
“And you and your brothers may or may not make it through the storm in terms of Luke’s career,” her dad added. “But at the end of the day, you’ll still have your family, and that’s truly what matters most. Screw whatever the rest of the world thinks or says. You boys know your truth.”
“You’re right about that.” Logan nodded. “Bash and Luke are my brothers and my best friends. Nothing will ever change that. We’ve been through too much together.”
“Then keep your mind on that and your friends at school, and all the other crap will fall into place.” Wylder lifted her tea glass for a cheers. “And Steak Club will always be here too.”
16
Wylder’s dad dropped them off at the entrance to the school.
Logan was quiet as they showed their passes to the security guards along with their school IDs and then walked through the gate onto the quiet campus. They made it back an hour before curfew, and Wylder was quite proud of herself.
She hadn't been lying when she told Ms. Jones she was trying to make better decisions. Especially since some of her bad choices negatively affected the people around her.
Wylder dug her hands deep in the pockets of her coat and matched Logan's pace, waiting for him to say something, anything. Her parents had only been moderately embarrassing. But no matter how embarrassing they were, they still qualified as the best parents in the universe. It didn't matter if a kid was theirs, they could make them feel better.
A lot of Becks' friends had trouble with their own families growing up, so the Anderson house was where many of them spent their time. She'd wanted to give Logan a bit of that, a bit of normalcy.
He blew on his hands to warm them, and Wylder was done waiting for him to speak. She'd never been good at it. "What are you thinking about?"
He didn't answer her at first, but then his low voice rumbled out of him. "Your parents... They’re like real parents, right?"
"As opposed to..."
"Music industry parents. Becks is famous, but your family... It’s so..."
"Boring?"
"I was going to say nice."
She smiled at that. Her family was nice. "Becks becoming a country star kind of surprised us all. My parents never pushed him into music. They helped him when he needed it. Like when he wanted to buy his first guitar, he sat them down and explained all the benefits of having a guitar. So, they got it for him. But they made him work in the family store to pay for half of it. That was always their thing. They wanted us to have whatever would make us happy, but they also wanted us to work for it."
"They remind me of my parents." His voice was so quiet she almost missed the words.
"Do you remember much about them?"
He smiled and looked to his feet as they walked down the path to the dorms. "Some. It's been a while now, and after so many years, you're left more with flashes of memories, of feelings. On Sunday nights, they used to hold these dinners. They were small when I was younger, but they grew as more and more neighbors would come. Some of our friends and their parents rarely missed weeks. Everyone there was from different walks of life, different religions and affiliations. You could see my gay neighbor eating next to my friend’s staunchly conservative dad."
His shoulder brushed hers, and all she wanted was for him to keep talking, to hear more about his parents.
"My mom's rule was that no issues were welcome in her house. That Sunday was the day for us all to come together and realize we were one community. Your parents' steak club sort of reminded me of that." He scratched the back of his head. "I'd forgotten. I can't believe I'd forgotten."
"Hey." Without thinking, she reached for his hand. "You said it yourself. It's been a while."
He didn't pull away, instead wrapping his long fingers around hers and squeezing.
They made it to the dorms, and Wylder wasn't ready to go to her own room. She released Logan and stopped. "We still have some time before curfew. I promised Killer I'd bring him a doggy bag."
Logan looked down at her empty hands. "But you didn't bring anything."
"Yeah, well, I forgot. But I should still stop by and see him. They had a game tonight. I checked the score on my phone before we left my house, and the Knights got creamed. Killian let in five goals."
Logan nodded and led her up the stairs and into the boys’ wing. Wylder prepared the pep-talk she had to give Killian, but when they opened Logan's door, it wasn't only Killian who greeted them.
Sebastian sat on the common room couch, looking completely out of place in the dorms. He stood when he saw them.
"Something is wrong." Logan walked in and shut the door. "Bash, why are you here?"
Wylder stayed back, not wanting to interrupt the brother moment, but Logan was right. The look on Sebastian's face said there was something very wrong.
Killian sidled up next to her, sliding an arm around her shoulders. "We should give them some privacy."
But she didn't want to. She needed to know what was going on. She didn't get a chance to respond to Killian before Sebastian met her gaze.
"No, you two can stay. You'll read about this in the tabloids, anyway." He unlocked his phone and handed it to Logan.
"This doesn't look like anything new." Logan's brow furrowed.
"Keep reading."
Wylder kept her eyes trained on Logan, watching his face grow paler and paler. Finally, he looked up. "I kept telling myself this would blow over if I stayed out of sight, but it won't, will it?"
Sebastian shook his head.
"What's going on?" Wylder walked forward to take a place at Logan's side.
He scrubbed a hand over his face. "Apparently the L.A. Morning show had an expert on this morning. This is an article about it. They compared the vocals in our YouTube video with vocals on Luke's album using some kind of vocal matching software. It's a perfect match. Now all the news outlets are using this as proof and reporting the scandal."
"I thought they were already reporting it."
"Gossip sites were. Now, it's legit news sources." He collapsed onto the couch, looking more tired than anything.
"That's not everything." Sebastian sighed.
How could that not be everything?
&nb
sp; "There's another rumor. It says the label is dropping Luke."
"But it's just a rumor, right?" Logan leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
Sebastian threw his hands up. "We don't know. Right now, no one at the label is returning Uncle Bruce's calls."
"That's not good, is it?" Wylder asked.
"No." Logan looked up at her, his eyes darkening. "It’s not good."
"So, what do we do?"
"We?" Sebastian asked.
Wylder crossed her arms. "My relationships with you Cook boys might be complicated at best, but I can't help feeling like I started this. If I'd just stopped meddling, none of this would be happening and he wouldn’t have pushed past his nerves and been seen on that stage. So, yes, it's we. I'm in this, whether you like it or not, Bash Cook."
Sebastian's lips twitched at that. "That reminds me of a feisty girl I once knew."
She sent him a glare. Now was not the time for trips down memory lane. Plus, if she was going down the boulevard of broken dreams with a Cook brother, it would have been Logan, the boy who’d kissed her twice and acted like just a friend the rest of the time.
Confusing jerk.
Shaking off those thoughts, she stomped her foot. "Don't just sit there looking like gaping fools, boys. Luke needs help. So, what do we do?"
Logan met her gaze. "We go to Nashville."
Family emergencies. They worked every time. There was no way Ms. Jones would have let Wylder go to Nashville again to help Luke, so Wylder called in reinforcements in the form of a brother who was surprisingly easy to convince. She'd asked Becks to trust her, and he did. Being the Academy's celebrity spokesman, and also payer of Wylder's tuition, he had considerable pull.
Ms. Jones wasn't an idiot. She knew it was a lie, but Wylder thought she was secretly glad to have an excuse to let her go.
Lying wasn't exactly making better choices, but going to Nashville to help a guy she wasn't even sure she liked was.
Luke needed them.
Not just his brothers, he needed someone who was creative. Someone with pull at the label.
He needed Becks. And he'd only get Becks if she was there to help.
As she rode in the backseat of Sebastian's car, she pulled up Twitter on her phone to check on her favorite Twitter war. It didn't disappoint.
SexyBecksy: Paps going to kill your lawn, @TheRealLukeCook. Need one of my many glorious hats? #BeckettHats
TheRealLukeCook: You wish this many people cared about you and your hats.
Okay, it was a pretty lame comeback, but Luke was dealing with a lot, so she'd forgive it.
She glanced up to find Logan looking at her in the mirror on his visor. When he caught her peering back, he flipped it up.
Wylder sank lower in her seat with a smile on her face. If anyone told her months ago that Logan Cook, of all people, would put the smile on her face, she'd have said they were nuts.
But now... It didn't seem so crazy.
They reached Nashville a bit after two in the morning, and even at this hour, news vans were camped on the street in front of Luke's house. If they were here now, Wylder couldn't imagine how much worse it would get later in the morning.
"Where are we going?" she asked when Sebastian drove right by the house.
"Back entrance," Logan said.
They parked at the side of a completely different street, and Sebastian led them through a series of backyards until they reached the fence surrounding Luke's.
Logan skirted the fence to a back gate that wasn't visible to the street, and Sebastian handed him a key. They slipped into the yard and shut the gate behind them.
A massive deck spanned the back of the house, leading down to the concrete pad surrounding the kidney-shaped pool that was closed up for the winter.
"Does he know we're coming?" Wylder remembered the last time she'd broken into Becks' house and how he'd tackled her to the ground. "Don't want him to think we're reporters or something breaking in."
Logan gave her a strange look. "We wouldn't show up without letting him know, so yeah."
Oh, not everyone was like her. She hid a grin and followed them through the sliding glass doors into a massive kitchen, lit only by the moonlight streaming in through the wide windows. It honestly didn't look all that different from Becks' house, but maybe this entire neighborhood had the same builder. The layout was identical with high ceilings and an open floor plan.
She bumped into a chair in the dark. A light flipped on in the hall, and she jumped.
Luke appeared, fully clothed as if he'd never gone to bed. His black t-shirt was rumpled, but his hair looked perfectly styled. Red rimmed his eyes. The guy might not have slept, but he was tired.
"Luke." Logan stepped forward and pulled his twin into a hug. "Are you okay?"
Luke nodded and pulled back. "It's been a long day."
Sebastian peered out the window. "How long have they been here?"
"Since early yesterday. They left after dark, most of them. The ones who stayed are asleep in their trucks. But the rest will return in a few hours. I haven't been able to leave the house. Uncle Bruce couldn't get through them to come in the door. We've had to use Facetime to try to problem solve. It's been... Less than ideal."
He pulled on the back of his neck and looked from Sebastian to Logan, his eyes finally settling on Wylder in confusion. "What are you all doing here?"
"This isn't just a Luke Cook problem." Logan crossed his arms. "It's a problem for all three of us. We never should have left you."
Luke snorted and crossed the kitchen to fill a glass with water. Swigging it back, he faced away from them. "And how would it have been different if you were here? I told you to go."
"Luke—"
"I don't care what happens," he burst out. "You didn't need to come because I'm okay. Sure, having the paps everywhere royally sucks, but the rest of it... I'm so darn tired, Logan. If the label drops me, so be it. Maybe it's for the best."
Logan didn't have anything to say to that.
Sebastian opened his mouth to speak and closed it.
Luke sighed. "Look, it's really good to see you. I've missed you both over the last weeks, but your lives aren't here, and you have to remember that. You can't come running every time I get scratched."
"This isn't just a scratch." Sebastian met his gaze. "This is your career, Luke."
To her surprise, Luke's gaze fell on Wylder. "It’s like they don't hear anything I'm saying."
She smiled sadly at him. "You're tired of fighting for it, of struggling every day for something you don't feel like you earned on your own."
Luke jabbed a thumb her way and turned to his brothers. "Where did you find this girl again?"
"The Academy," Logan said at the same time Sebastian said, "Nashville."
That made Luke laugh despite everything happening. "You're both screwed." He looked at Wylder again. "So, smart girl, what do I do next?"
"You escape."
"Of course she'd say that." Logan groaned. "He can't just run from this, Wylds."
"No, but he can run from them." She pointed to the front window. "The story isn't going anywhere, but that doesn't mean they get to hound him and trap him in his own house. It's not okay. And if he's going to get out of here without any of them seeing him, it has to be tonight." She met Luke's intense gaze. He was once a boy she'd idolized, fantasized about. Now he was just someone who needed her help.
And sneaking in and out of places was her specialty.
"They can't come on your property, can they?"
He shrugged. "They're not supposed to, but they do. Yesterday, some even staked out the back gate so I couldn't leave without them getting a picture or a statement."
"And you haven't called the police?"
"That's not really my style. I figured they'd go away, eventually."
She nodded. "That probably won't be for a while with this story. When my brother was caught lying to his fans... Let's just say it took a while." And idea came to her.
Her brother.
"Let me ask you this, Luke. What is the last place any of these people would look for you?"
"I'm not really sure."
Logan caught on more quickly than his brother and flashed her a grin. "You’re a genius."
"What?" Luke looked from them to Sebastian who was smiling now too.
"Think a truce can be called in the war?" Sebastian asked.
Wylder nodded. "But Luke has to agree to be on his best behavior." She pointed one finger at him. "That means no being your typical jerk self."
"What am I missing?"
Wylder's grin widened. "You're so not going to like this."
17
Sebastian dropped Wylder and the twins off in front of Beckett's house with a promise to contact them in the morning. He would drive across town to stay with their uncle. The two of them wanted to hunker down and plan how to mitigate this mess.
While Luke hid out.
"I can't believe I'm here," Luke grumbled. It hadn't been hard getting him out the back of his house unseen in the middle of the night. Now, they had to get inside before someone driving by saw them.
Wylder texted Becks that they were coming, but she assumed he hadn't seen it since it was closing in on three in the morning. He was a heavy sleeper. So, she was fully prepared for another wrestling match. Only this time, she wasn't alone.
They managed to get over the wall into Becks’ side yard where a row of hedges and the high stone wall hid them from the road.
"We could just camp out here." Luke's breath curled in front of his face. "I like being outside. No need to go in and stay with Becks."
Wylder laughed. "You aren't getting out of this."
Logan slipped his hand into hers and pulled her back as Luke kept walking. He leaned down, his breath warm on her cheek. "Thank you for this."
Wylder flashed him a grin and skipped ahead to slip her arm through Luke's. "Your brother used to hate me, but I wore him down. I learned everything I know from Beckett. Just don't tell him I said that. You guys will be the best of friends by the time this is over."
Wylder and the Almost Rockstar (Reluctant Rockstars Book 2) Page 13
