Fade Into You (Shaken Dirty #3)(10)

“Hello, Austin! How the f*ck are you tonight?” the lead singer yelled into the mic as the rest of them found their places. Quinn came to the back of the stage to join Wyatt—his keyboard was set up left of center—while Jared and Li took their respective spots in front of them. Maybe it made him an ass, but he was glad that Jared was the one in front of him instead of Li. He didn’t want to spend the whole set watching the other guy’s every move, comparing himself to him and trying to make sure he came out on top. Plus, the familiarity of the formation chilled him out even more, helped him get into the headspace he hadn’t been able to find before coming out on stage.

The crowd roared their response to Ryder, and Jared got in on the act, welcoming them all to the show and talking about how Austin was the greatest music city in the country.

And then they were launching into “Realize, Real Lies,” one of their biggest hits to date and one of Wyatt’s favorite songs to perform ever. He’d written it with Quinn a couple of years back and the drum fills launching into the chorus and the bridge were some of the sickest he’d ever played. Definitely the sickest he’d ever written.

It was a super-fast song, one guaranteed to get the crowd going, and Wyatt lost himself to it as he set the beat on the hi-hat cymbals all the while working the snare and bass drum like they were his whole world. When the first drum fill came up, he poured it all out—all the rage and pain and fear that ate at him like a parasite—slamming down on the tom-toms and the crash cymbals like his life f*cking depended on it.

In that moment, it sure as shit felt like it did.

So he played, and as the song drew to an end, he threw in an angry, extended drum fill that rocked the club like an explosion and had his bandmates turning to stare at him with wide eyes and raised brows. They were smiling though, so he kept at it, building and building and building the line until he was going so fast his hands were a blur even to him. And then he held it—held the beat, held the rhythm—for nearly three minutes as the crowd roared and Ryder and Jared egged him on.

Only the knowledge that he had a whole show to play—and that the last thing he needed to be doing right now was showboating—had him bringing it down. It just felt so goddamn good to be back the f*ck where he belonged.

From that moment on, the night was magic. Or, more accurately, the night was music, pure and simple. Music flowing through him. Music washing over him. Music getting inside of him. Pulling him under. Pulling him deeper, deeper, deeper, until all he could feel was the rhythm.

Until all he could feel was the beat.

It was in his veins, in his blood, in the crazy wild pounding of his heart.

Fuck, he’d missed this shit. It felt like so much longer than ten weeks since he’d played. It felt like forever.

Maybe because it had been such a long time since he’d done this stone-cold sober. So long, in fact, that he’d almost forgotten what it felt like when there was nothing to come between him and the beat.

Nothing to mute the thrum in his veins.

The vibration in his fingers.

The sweet burn in his shoulders that only came when he wailed away, full-throttle, on his kit.

It was the best feeling in the f*cking world.

Better than nodding out.

Better than flying.

Better, even, than sex, though there was a tiny, distracted part of him that wondered if that would still hold true if he’d had the time to get that cute little brunette he’d met in back of the club into bed. Eating her out had been one of the hottest things he’d ever done, and something told him it wasn’t just because he’d gone two and a half months with only his hand to get him off.

No, there was something about the way she’d felt under his fingers, the noises she’d made as he’d taken her higher and higher, that was sticking with him way longer than an anonymous encounter before a show warranted. Hell, her gasps and whimpers were still playing in the back of his head, adding a sexy-as-f*ck baseline to the music he was playing. Each pump of the bass drum, each crash of the ride cymbals, sounded like her in his head. And it made the playing so much sweeter.

In between songs, Jared and Ryder pandered to the ever-growing crowd. Asking them how Li was doing, which they answered with whistles and shouts. Teasing them. Working them up even higher so that they were in a frenzy by the time they were winding up for the last couple of songs. Every time he had a break, he searched the crowd for the brunette, wondering if she was still around. Hoping she was. It was hard to see past the first few rows because of the lights, but he kept looking anyway. Ending the night inside her seemed like a pretty good finish to him.

But the movement of the now-capacity crowd made it impossible for him to focus on any one face. They were so into the music, clapping and stomping and singing along like this was a stadium show instead of a cramped club on Fifth Street. It reminded him of the early days, before things had gotten so f*cked up. Before the drugs took hold of him and he ruined everything.

So he played. He played and played and played, going so hard that sweat was dripping off of him and pooling on the floor at his feet.

So hard that his shoulders and back and arms screamed at him to stop.

So hard that he broke half a dozen drumsticks before the show hit the three-quarters mark.

And he loved every f*cking second of it.

More than once, he caught Jared or Quinn or Ryder looking at him, eyes wide and mouths open. He didn’t care, wouldn’t let himself get bogged down in worrying about what was wrong. He knew he was playing well, knew he was on point, and whatever it was that had them looking at him like that could wait ’til they were off-stage. This feeling was too f*cking good to waste.