Page 9 of Banging the Drummer

ME: Would you answer if I called you?

MOONBEAM: I don’t think so. At least not right now.

ME: Why not?

MOONBEAM: Well, for one, because I’m actually in the bathtub right now. Taking a little bubble soak to wash off the stink of thirteen-year-old tyrants.

ME: Want me to beat any of them up for you?

MOONBEAM: I cannot believe you asked that.

ME: Why?

MOONBEAM: You can ask my siblings and my closest friends, if they’re ever having trouble with anyone, I always offer to shiv them.

ME: That’s a bit of an escalation from just beating someone up.

MOONBEAM: Though she be but little, she is fierce.

ME: Oh, when she’s angry, she is keen and shrewd! She was a vixen when she went to school.

MOONBEAM: Shakespeare fan?

ME: I’m half British, I’d have to give up my citizenship if I couldn’t quote Shakespeare. It’s a requirement.

ME: But what I really want to know is, my sweet Luna, my lovely Moonbeam, were you a vixen in school?

MOONBEAM: Once a vixen, always a vixen.

We’re flirting.

That’s what’s happening, right? I want to ask one of the guys, but they’ll just give me shit for not knowing. Well, Crue and Asher probably wouldn’t, but still. I should trust my instincts. We’re definitely flirting.

chapter

six

Luna

I haven’t told a single person about my secret.

I’ve come close to telling my sister a few times, but the truth is, she’s never quite understood my love for the band or their music. Or why I crushed on the guy hiding behind the drum set instead of the front men. Mason had been a front man long enough for me to notice his chiseled features and pale green eyes.

So yeah, the fact that I had developed an online friendship with Mason Ball was still my little secret. Of course, that’s assuming it really is him and not someone pulling the prank of all pranks.

Maybe tonight I’ll get the proof I need. I stare at my phone and the notification that I have a new voicemail. He’d cleverly called during school hours when I couldn’t have answered the phone if I wanted to. He knows I keep my phone locked up in a drawer when I’m in the classroom.

I press the message, then hit the speaker button.

“Ahoy, love,” his voice speaks into the emptiness of my bedroom.

I laugh at his greeting.

“I figured you probably wouldn’t answer when I called, so we’ll use voicemail as a baby step.”

I might end up getting crushed at the end of this thing, but that sounds like Mason Ball’s voice. That posh English accent with the carefree tone that’s always sounded a little practiced to me. It’s what he’s sounded like any time I’ve ever heard him speak.

He chuckles and it is legitimately the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard.