Jest has been on his own since his mid-teens and still blesses the chance that let him realize his dream of playing percussion in a band that has become his substitute family. Although he misses the close sharing, he doesn't expect to find a partner and certainly not one as clearly out of his element as the man who one night wanders into the club where Jest's band plays, looking totally lost and friendless.<br><br>Greene has struggled to build himself a life far from the undisciplined communal community in which he grew up. He's lonely though, and not sure how to remedy that, so he works as a game programmer in Silicon Valley until he makes a faux pas at a party. Traveling aimlessly, he meets Jest and the other members of Taken By Storm, and is intrigued but terrified of slipping back into a disorderly world like the one of his childhood.<br><br>They say opposites attract, but can a rebel drummer and an uptight programmer find enough common ground for a relationship?

A Different Drummer

Greene found a table, back in a corner away from the bandstand and the dance floor. A table-hop in flame red Daisy Dukes, matching silver-stitched boots and a top showing lots of skin sauntered over to take his order—after the more alert bartender spoke to her.


He ordered a Bud Light with a burger and fries, determined not to overindulge. As he’d guessed, this was a workingman’s place. The room was jammed with boots, big hats and garish shirts. The women dressed much like the men in tight jeans and bright tops, many sporting wide-brimmed hats in a rainbow of colors. Although he felt as out of place here as with the hip crowd in San Jose, no one paid him any attention.


Chapter 3