Then again, here they were, several hours later, and Wyatt was completely MIA. The band was growing agitated—she could see it in the way Quinn kept clicking his pen, the way Ryder kept bouncing his leg. The way Jared kept glancing at his phone and cursing under his breath.
Shane could sense it, too, and she could tell it was making him nervous. His eyes were wide and his own body language a million times tenser than it had been when he’d first gotten here. He had to know what was making them nervous—the whole music industry and half the world knew about Wyatt’s addiction—so even if they decided they wanted to give him a shot at another secret club gig, there was no guarantee he would actually go for it.
Still, it would have been nice if Wyatt had actually given them a fighting chance. Oh, she knew that this wasn’t technically her problem—that helping Shaken Dirty find a new bassist wasn’t in her job description, especially after what her father had said yesterday. But this band meant a lot to her father’s label, and to her. And, more importantly, so did Wyatt. She wanted to make sure both he and his band were okay before she had to go back to New York in a few weeks. Or sooner, if her father decided to throw a hissy fit and send Caleb down here after all.
“Do you have any questions for us?” Quinn asked, leg still jiggling.
“Actually, yes.” Shane took turns looking each of the band members in the eye. “Where’s Wyatt?”
“Right here.” Wyatt’s deep voice filled the room as he stepped inside Quinn’s studio, letting the door fall closed behind him.
“Wyatt!” His name escaped before she even knew she was going to say it.
He winked at her before grinning at the other guys. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, holding up his hands, which were heavily bandaged. She barely had time to wonder if he’d been in a fight—please God, don’t let him have been in a fight—when he continued, “There was this song…”
The concern and annoyance melted off the other guys’ faces like it had never been. “You wrote a song?” Jared demanded, jumping up and crossing the room to clap Wyatt on the back.
“I did. I went home to change, saw my kit. It just kind of came to me.”
“Fuck, yeah, man!” Quinn let out a little whoop. “Every time that happens to you, we get another Grammy.”
“And another number one hit,” Ryder added with a grin.
“Yeah, well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Wyatt said, but he was smiling, too. And it was a real smile, one that had his cheeks creasing and his eyes sparkling with a joy she’d never before seen in him. It was a good look, especially since those same eyes were clear and unclouded by drugs. “You haven’t even heard it yet.”
“Yeah, well, that’s about to change,” Jared said, grabbing one of Wyatt’s hands to examine the damage. It must have been even worse than it looked from across the room, because he let out a long, low whistle. “Damn, man, it’s been a long time since you tore them up this bad.”
Wyatt shrugged. “What good is art if you don’t suffer for it occasionally?”
“Damn fucking straight,” Ryder said, coming over to stand beside him, too. “But before we hear that soon-to-be-award-winning song, why don’t you meet Shane? We’ve just been talking to him about the bassist opening.”
“Hey, Shane,” Wyatt said, holding out one bandaged hand to shake. Shane looked at it, a little horrified, but Wyatt just laughed. “It’s fine, man. Doesn’t hurt.”
Shane nodded, but he still took Wyatt’s hand very gingerly, like he was convinced the drummer would scream if he pressed too hard.
Then again, she didn’t blame him. The whole doesn’t hurt comment was a blatant lie—the parts of his hands she could see were raw. She’d heard about drummers messing up their hands during a particularly hard performance, had even seen the blood spatters across the occasional drum head after a show.
But what she saw in Wyatt’s hands—the raw sores on his knuckles, the broken blisters on a couple of his fingers—that wasn’t normal abuse from a hard session. Drummers built up callouses if they played often enough, so for Wyatt’s hands to look like that…he had to have played for hours, had to have played through agony to get them in that shape. And that was just what she could see. She couldn’t imagine what was actually under the bandages.
“So, what’s going on?” Wyatt asked the room at large as he ignored a seat in the circle of musicians and crossed over to sit next to her on the couch. As he did, it took every ounce of professionalism she had not to demand to see his wounds, to ask if he was really okay. But she was here as a guest, a social media coordinator in the eyes of the other guys, and the last thing she wanted to do was overstep her bounds.
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?”