Page 42 of Love is a Lyric
“Piper doesn’t sing, Dad.”
“Then, I must be going senile because I seem to remember eight years of Piper Hayes bouncing around this house with a song on her tongue and the lyrics she was always scribbling bouncing in her head.”
How did he not know any of this? Had Quinn known her sister wrote songs? That she enjoyed singing them too? “She’s been with us for more than two years, Dad. How do I not know any of this?”
“Because you haven’t been looking, kiddo. Quinn is a star that shines so brightly it blinds everyone in her vicinity. But not us. Your mother, me, Chase… we’ve always loved our girl. She’s as much a part of this family as you are.” He leaned forward. “Which is why I need to ask this of you.”
“Ask what?”
“When you leave again to rejoin your band as we all know you will, don’t take her with you. Piper thinks she owes Quinn something just because they’re sisters, but I think we’d all like to see her start to soar in her own right.”
He didn’t tell his dad Piper had already broken away from Quinn or that in just two months she’d leave to work for a different rockstar on a different tour. Instead, he looked at the man who’d raised both him and Piper and nodded. “I won’t let either of us get sucked into Quinn’s orbit again.”
“That’s my boy.” He reached over and clapped him on the back. “We love Quinny, we do. Don’t ever think we don’t. But maybe not having Piper following her around will teach her something too.”
“What?”
“That holding on is easy. It’s the letting go that’s hard.”
He couldn’t help feeling that lesson was for him as much as it was for Quinn. He not only had to let go of the woman he’d thought he loved, that wasn’t the most difficult part. It was the notion he’d lived his life by, the feeling that fate somehow cared what happened in the end, that it led him onto the path toward Quinn.
There was no one else pulling the strings.
Just Ben Evans.
