Page 45 of Love is a Lyric
Piper had to use that knowledge to keep herself from getting lost in the feelings she now wondered if she’d had all along.
* * *
Piper woke to the sound of a guitar, a soft melody she strained to hear more of. They’d been back in Ohio for a little while now, and she hadn’t so much as seen Ben pick up his guitar.
A smile tilted her lips as she pulled herself from the bed and stuffed her feet in her slippers. She peeked out into the hall and didn’t see anyone, so she knocked on the door next to hers.
The music didn’t stop. “Come in.”
She pushed open the door to find Ben sitting on the edge of his bed, the guitar in his lap. He alternated between playing and writing notes onto a blank sheet. He didn’t look up at her as he held the pencil between his teeth and tried a new chord combination.
Nodding to himself, he wrote something down.
“Writing a new song?” She leaned against the doorframe.
He met her gaze. “Trying to. I’ve never really written music without lyrics before.”
“It sounded good.”
His face flushed, and he removed his glasses to clean them with the edge of his shirt. “I couldn’t sleep. Did I wake you?”
She shook her head. “It was nice to hear you playing again.”
“Yeah… well…” He shrugged, and they both knew what that meant. Without Quinn’s lyrics, without her inspiration, he’d been lost.
“What made you start this morning?”
“I don’t know. I guess just being here is finally hitting me. The place. The… people.” He shifted his eyes away. “I was lying here this morning and feeling a little sorry for myself, but I realized it was because of the music, not the relationship. That was what I missed. I don’t need someone else to make music.”
“No.” She pushed away from the wall. “You don’t.”
“Do you want to hear what I have so far?” Red crept up his neck like he was embarrassed at his question.
“Definitely.” She sat beside him on the bed, her leg bumping his.
His fingers plucked the strings as if they’d never left, as if that was what they’d always been meant to do. He swayed as he played, and she couldn’t take her eyes from the smile on his face.
She’d expected something dark, something desperate in the song, but it had a sweetness, a hope—even without lyrics.
Words rolled through her mind, a song writing itself to match the notes. Before she could stop herself, she started humming along.
It had been years since she let anyone hear her sing, or even let anyone know she could, but sitting there with Ben, it felt right. Quinn sang to get famous, to have that lifestyle.
But with Piper, it had been as necessary as breathing. She didn’t know when she’d lost that.
As the song ended, Ben’s eyes met hers as if he saw her for the first time. They sat close, too close, and when he reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear, she shivered.
“How did I not know?” he whispered.
She knew the answer he didn’t want to hear. Ben Evans had never seen Piper Hayes. To him, she’d always been a kid until she became nothing more than an assistant.
And to her, he’d been her sister’s boyfriend.
That thought brought her crashing back to reality, and she pulled away.
His hand dropped back to his guitar, his lifeline.
Piper jumped from the bed, her heart hammering in her chest. “Ben…”
He ran a hand through his bed-wild hair, making it stand on end more than it was before. “Piper, we can’t—”
“I know. It’s okay, Ben. We’re okay. I just have to go.” She didn’t give him the chance to say anything else as she escaped the room and the air-sucking vortex his presence created.
Was Conner, of all people, right?
If he was, if Piper had somehow developed feelings for the most off-limits man she could, this wouldn’t end well for any of them.
