Wylder and the Rising Rockstar

Prologue Logan “Doesn’t he have friends in this lousy town?” Logan Cook threw his phone down onto the coffee table in the too large, too fancy house his twin brother called home. The twin brother who wasn’t responding to his texts, calls, and was nowhere to be found in all of Nashville. Nowhere he or his older brother, Sebastian could think to look, anyway. Sebastian sank down to the couch beside him. “You know, when you were little, you guys were always on the same wavelength, like you didn’t even need to talk to each other to know exactly how the other one was feeling.” “And your point?” Logan scowled at his brother. “You two have fallen out of sync. Somewhere over the last few years, it’s like you lost your … twinness.” “Our twinness?” Logan smirked. “Do you have any idea how hard it’s been for Luke?” “Hard?” Logan snorted. Luke had it easy. He was the country music star. He had everything he’d ever wanted, and he ruined it, letting that video of Wylder and Logan go viral. Logan couldn’t fathom what his brother was thinking. He wasn’t stupid. Luke was smart. A straight-A student who managed to juggle online schooling along with his demanding tour schedule. “You wildly underestimate how hard it is to maintain this deception.” Sebastian perched on the edge of the couch, wearing his older brother/parent expression. An expression Logan hadn’t seen in a really long time. “Are you even serious right now?” Logan thumped his chest. “I’m the one who has to hold this house of cards up. I’m the one who has to pretend to be him when I’m in the studio, lying low when I’m not so I don’t call too much attention to myself.” Sebastian smacked him and Logan’s head shot forward. “And he’s the one who has to keep that secret from getting out, you big dummy. Luke has to live with the constant fear of doing or saying the wrong thing to the wrong person.” “I guess you have a point.” Logan rubbed his head. “We can’t find where Luke is hiding out right now because Luke doesn’t have friends. He has no one. No one but you and me, and we left him to hold up this sham all by himself.” Sebastian leaned back against the couch with an old-man groan. “How do we not know our brother well enough to know where he’d go to hide from the media?” “Maybe he’s with someone he met on tour?” Logan reached for his phone. “Which means he could be anywhere in the world.” “What about Uncle Bruce? Wouldn’t Luke tell him where he was going?” Sebastian gave him an incredulous look. “Luke and Bruce were barely speaking for months before this whole scandal forced them to. Are you really that clueless, Logan?” “I guess I haven’t been paying attention.” Logan paced across the room to the drink cart Luke kept stocked with sodas and seltzer water. The seltzer made him think of Wylder, and he realized he missed her. They hadn’t spoken over the Thanksgiving break from school. She was busy with her big family celebration, and he hadn’t exactly told her he didn’t know where Luke was. When they’d first arrived in Nashville to look for Luke over the break, they’d checked Beckett Anderson’s house first. It would have been a good place to hide since the two rock stars hated each other. That was when Logan realized his brother wasn’t just hiding from the media storm, but from Logan as well. “I’m a crap brother.” Logan gripped the edge of the drink cart, pouring a can of cranberry seltzer water over ice. “You’ve had your own issues with this farce we’ve been perpetuating for far too long. It was only supposed to give us a chance to get in front of the right people.” He could hear the regret in his brother’s voice. “I should have put my foot down when Bruce suggested we keep it up.” Logan turned back toward Sebastian, lifting the glass to his lips. “That farce saved our lives, Bash. It put a roof over our heads when we didn’t have one. It’s not your fault. It just happened.” He shrugged. Back then, none of them could have dreamed they’d go from rags to riches almost overnight. Luke’s rising star shone so brightly, they didn’t know how to get out of the mess they’d made of it, so they kept it up. And now, nearly three years later, it was their way of life. Logan’s phone lit up with a series of messages. He scanned through them quickly. All news outlets begging for another interview with Logan Cook, the voice behind the star. It would have been funny if it weren’t so serious—that they thought for a minute he would speak out against his brother. He ignored them all. But he couldn’t ignore the headlines and gossip sites that were tearing his family apart. In the absence of an exclusive interview, the media did what they always did in these situations, they made stuff up. The internet was full of articles “speculating” how the Cook brothers’ scam came to fruition. There were so many theories—most completely ridiculous and far from the truth—and each theory dug them deeper into this hole Logan wasn’t sure they’d ever climb out of. “We know Luke better than anyone.” Sebastian sighed. “You’re right.” Logan hung his head. “About what?” Sebastian gave him a strange look. “We have to go back to school.” “How’d you know that’s what I was going to say?” “Because I know you as well as I know Luke. Luke will come find us when he’s ready to talk. And you know the best place for us is Defiance Academy.” “Then let’s get out of this creepy house.” Sebastian shivered. “I don’t know how Luke stands it. It’s so big and empty.” “Like a tomb.” Logan left to go pack, eager to get back to the school that felt more like home than this place ever had. And Wylder. He was eager to see her again.