Page 24 of Love is a Lyric
“We’re supposed to be learning the new song.”
He grinned. “Don’t tell me you haven’t memorized it already. I know you. We can work on it out here.”
Her smile dimmed as she muttered, “Yeah, I’ve memorized it.”
“Quinn really outdid herself this time. It’s not our usual stuff, but I can already see our fans loving it.”
“Let’s just get to work, okay?” She turned away from him to stare across the water.
He didn’t know what he’d said to change her mood so completely, but she was right. He didn’t want to take up more of her time than he’d already asked for. “Should we just start with the first verse?”
She nodded and sucked in a breath. Twisting her wet hair over one shoulder, she faced him once again. “Same way as always?”
He nodded. They’d gotten used to these secret meetings to learn songs by now. Ever since she’d agreed to work for Quinn, she’d helped him. He only wished he could do something to take whatever was bothering her off her mind.
She spoke the lyrics from memory, and he repeated them until they filled his mind with the emotion of the song. Quinn managed to surprise them all with the depth, and he couldn’t wait to put music to it.
Piper didn’t smile while she helped him. She didn’t joke around like they normally did. Her voice held an emotionless quality he didn’t like.
“Hey.” He bumped her shoulder, interrupting the next verse. “Would you tell me if something was truly wrong?”
She bit her lip, and it was her tell, a clear sign whatever words left her mouth next would be a lie. “Of course, Ben.”
The lie made him back away from her, needing a bit of space. He couldn’t help feeling this bubble they’d lived in since Piper quit college to join the band on tour was on the brink of shattering into a million pieces. Whether she stood on stage or not, she was a part ofFate. He just wished she saw that too.
He let his feet drift up from the ocean floor and floated along the top of a wave as it rolled under him, lifting him toward the sky. With his ears under water, all he heard was the beating of his own heart, the rushing of the blood underneath his skin. Quinn’s lyrics rolled through his mind, latching on to the musical notes he already wanted to assign to the dips and valleys of the song.
He kicked his feet to float in toward shore and trudged up the sand to where they’d left their belongings. His guitar sat on the towel. If he’d left it on a beach in L.A., there’s no way it would still be there when he got back from the water. But there were only a few people down the beach from them. A family waded in the water, two little kids screaming in joy.
Beyond them, an elderly couple held hands as they walked along the shoreline. It was a different kind of life, that was for sure. Ben had trouble imagining living a normal life, one like most of the kids he’d gone to school with who were now getting married and having babies.
He used to envy the slow pace at which they could live, but the older he got, the more he realized it wasn’t slow at all, just different. He sat on the towel and pulled the guitar onto his lap, settling the curve over his thigh.
The strings called to him with their promise of melody. He closed his eyes, bringing Quinn’s lyrics to the forefront of his mind and melding his music to them, crafting the story they’d take the listener on.
Creating music hadn’t always been easy for him. Once upon a time, he’d spent hours and days working on a single song, but that was before Quinn started writing.
Before the desire to fit their music together burned through him.
He hummed the lyrics as he picked the strings of his guitar, adjusting to try different chords.
“Shouldn’t you be writing this down?” Piper’s voice interrupted his trance.
Tapping the side of his head, he smiled up at her. “All good.”
“Right.” She lowered herself to the sand, not saying the words on both their minds. How was it he could remember his notes so clearly, but anything else needed to be reinforced a thousand times to stick? “I’ve seen you do this a million times and am still surprised you’re this savant.”
“Only when it comes to your sister’s songs.” He hummed the chorus as he adjusted his guitar and made a note in his mind. “How’s this chord to start on?”
She pursed her lips. “It’s not really what I imagined.”
“What you imagined?” He raised a brow behind his glasses. “You just heard it a couple days ago.”
“Well, um, yeah, but Quinn showed it to me before you and Conner.”
That made sense. Quinn was a perfectionist who refused to show him any lyrics before they were finished. It drove him nuts, but the finished product was always worth the wait. He was glad she at least showed them to someone. “Did she tell you what the song was about? It’s kind of sad.” He had a suspicion but didn’t want to assume. Quinn had never shown any sort of grief over their parents’ death. It had almost been cold the way she’d shut down, and then months later she went on with her life as if she’d never had a family at all.
Unlike Piper. He pictured his eighteen-year-old self finding Piper in the days following the funeral. She’d taken to running off, but he and Chase refused to let her drown in her grief alone.
