“Hell, yeah!” Ryder shouted back just as loudly. Then he leaned over and pushed hard at Wyatt’s back, shoving him out into the spotlight before he knew what had hit him.
The audience gasped when they saw him, then started cheering and chanting his name. Flashes exploded as picture after picture was taken and he knew it was only a matter of minutes before his comeback was all over social media. The crowd’s enthusiasm was exactly the response he needed to ease the tension that had had a stranglehold of his chest for the past hour, exactly what he needed to get past the craving for a fix that never quite went away, and just focus on the music and the crowd and the joy of once again making music with his friends.
This was what was real, he reminded himself. This was what mattered. He was here to play the fucking drums beside Quinn and Ryder and Jared. He was here to entertain the crowd. Everything else could wait.
With that thought beating in his brain like a metronome on high, he smiled out at the crowd. Shoved his hands in the air and waved as they went crazy. Then tossed out a couple of the extra drumsticks he always kept in his back pocket during a show, making sure they made it to different corners of the club.
The audience went wild for them, just like they always did. It made him relax just a little more, made this whole thing feel more familiar after two and a half months of being out of the loop. Which in turn had him grinning and tossing out a couple more sticks as a thank-you to the crowd for being so fucking cool.
As the fans continued going nuts, he made his way toward his kit, securing his in-ears as he went. This was his shot to show the band he was worth the faith they’d put in him—his shot to show everyone that he wasn’t completely fucked up beyond repair—and he was going to take it.
Just as he reached his drums at the back right of the stage, Ryder ran past him to take center stage.
“Hello, Austin! How the fuck 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 fucking 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 fuck 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.