Fade Into You (Shaken Dirty #3)(65)

At least until Wyatt rested one of his injured hands on his thigh and rubbed gently. When he grimaced at the friction, she couldn’t stop herself from picking his hand up at the wrist and bringing it closer to examine. “What did you do to yourself?”

“I played,” he said simply. “It’s what I do. Trust me, this is no big deal.”

She wanted to disagree, wanted to kiss his hands, to check and make sure he was really all right. But she didn’t know if it was her place, didn’t know how he was feeling after what had gone down at her apartment. So she kept her mouth shut as she let go of his hand and waited for one of the guys to say something.

It didn’t take long. Quinn stepped up, breaking the awkward silence by asking, “So, should we play something? See how we all sound together?”

Not quite what she’d expected him to say, but…if the others weren’t concerned, maybe she shouldn’t be either? Maybe this really was normal for him?

“Yeah!” Wyatt was the first one up and across the room. “Let’s do it.” He gave her one long, searching look as he stepped behind his kit, but then he was all business.

“Get your bass and come stand by me,” Jared instructed Shane as he headed to his guitar. “There’s an amp over here you can plug into.”

“Sick,” Shane answered, scrambling to follow directions.

So he’d definitely decided not to run, then, Poppy thought, amused as she watched him all but salute in his haste to do what Jared had said. It was a very smart move on his part. Shaken Dirty was a band to be reckoned with under any circumstances. But with Wyatt on and sober and writing songs ’til his hands bled? They were epic.

“What are we playing?” Ryder asked.

“You’re not playing anything,” Quinn told him, playfully jostling his shoulder as he walked by on his way to his keyboards. “You’re just going to stand there and wait for the rest of us to make you look like you know what you’re doing.”

Ryder flipped him off, but he was laughing while he did. “Yeah, well, somebody’s gotta front this band of miscreants and make you look good.”

“We should probably call Jamison, then, huh?” Wyatt joined in the teasing. “She’s way better at looking good than you are.”

“She totally is,” Ryder agreed with a grin. “Too bad she wants nothing to do with the rest of you losers.”

“Obviously not,” Jared deadpanned. “Must be why she demanded I come over for breakfast this morning. And made me blueberry pancakes while you were out on your pathetic excuse for a run.”

“Those were leftovers from when your sister made me breakfast in bed this morning. One of these days, you’re just going to have to come to grips with the fact that you’re not her favorite anymore. In fact—”

Wyatt cut off the good-natured teasing with an extended drum fill that had everyone in the room turning to stare at him, eyes wide and ears ringing from the powerful display.

“Shit.” Quinn was the first to recover. “Is that from the new song?”

Wyatt grinned, waggled his eyebrows. “Let’s do ‘Pieces of You’ first. That’s got a great base line.” He smirked at Shane as Jared fumbled through some hand-written sheet music before sliding a couple of pieces of paper onto the stand in front of the bassist. “Try to keep up, will you?”

Then, before waiting to see if anyone agreed, he started counting off the time on his hi-hat cymbal. One and two and three and four and—

Jared joined in first, with the powerful set of chords that marked the beginning of Poppy’s favorite love song ever. Quinn dropped in second and then Shane was there, too. He was shaky, nowhere near as confident on the song as the other guys were, but it was new material for him—and obviously a new song for Shaken Dirty to be playing all together. Rumor had it Ryder had written it to win Jamison back after they’d broken up, right around the same time Wyatt went to rehab and Micah got kicked out of the band.

Since Jamison and Ryder were together now, it obviously must have worked. Not that she was surprised. The song was gorgeous, and so full of heart that she didn’t know any woman who could have resisted it.

The song ended in a sophisticated tangle of chords that had Shane scrambling. He didn’t quite pull it off, but he did okay in her opinion. A quick glance at Wyatt’s face told her he felt exactly the same way.

They did four more songs together, all of them big Shaken Dirty hits that anyone who liked rock music should have known like the back of their hand. It was obvious that Shane did know them, but even with the sheet music he struggled to keep up. Struggled to lay down a bass line that the others could work with. And it wasn’t just his fingerings—in most cases, those could be learned. But there was something about the way he played that just didn’t work with Shaken Dirty’s sound. He wasn’t crisp enough, which meant that for most of the songs, his notes kept coming out just a little muddled.

As they finished, she glanced at Wyatt, Jared, Quinn and Ryder. They were all smiling, and with another band she’d take that as a sign they’d liked playing with Shane. But the four of them were usually so polite that it was hard to tell—it wasn’t like they were going to start listing his shortcomings right there in front of him. So instead of worrying needlessly, she decided to just sit back and see how things played out.