Page 59 of Love is a Lyric
Now or never.
She swallowed. “I’ll sing with you, Ben.”
His entire face lit up from the inside out, and a grin parted his lips. “Good. That’s good.”
Chase’s voice came from where he’d stepped up to the microphone. “Ladies and gentleman, I’d like to introduce the best guy I know. Benji.”
Ben laughed at the introduction. Ben Evans wasn’t here tonight, only Benji. He stepped up onto the stage and pulled Piper with him as Chase handed him the guitar and leaped down.
Ben pulled the guitar strap over his head and leaned into the mic. “I brought a little help up with me.” He smiled, using the charm that melted his normal crowds. “How about a littleFate?”
It was dangerous, increasing the risk of being recognized, but right then, Piper didn’t want to think about the consequences. When she’d written this song, life became clear, her grief fading to the background after many long years.
It allowed her to start living again.
And now, six years later, each word still had meaning.
She didn’t care that this was the song that made Ben fall in love with Quinn, or that it made the country fall in love with their romance. It was hers.
Ben started up, his fingers flying across the strings as he sang the first words. Piper watched him, getting a new view of the man she’d seen in concert so many times. Standing next to him was a whole new experience, one she’d hold on to once they’d gone their separate ways.
He looked sideways at her as he sang, waiting for her to join in.
Their voices didn’t belong together, they weren’t meant to stand on the same stage, yet as she melded her voice to his, she didn’t want to be anywhere else.
We were two souls.
Trying to learn the ways of fate.
Two souls
Grasping for a hand to hold.
Two souls
Drowning in this game we played.
Each line fell from Piper’s lips like it had always been meant to. She’d never believed in fate, not like Ben, but the song was about more than that. It taught her she had to make her own fate, that she got to choose where her life led. The past couldn’t hold her when the future called.
She’d been a fifteen-year-old girl dreaming of love, of something to rescue her from the soul-crushing depression she hadn’t been able to escape from.
Piper didn’t look out at the crowd, she didn’t search for Chase. Everyone else disappeared, leaving only her and Ben in a deserted world where music was their language, notes the path home.
His voice called to her, and she answered, not taking her eyes from his as they continued the mesmerizing dance. It was everything and nothing. A world full of light and one born of darkness.
Because as soon as the song drew to a close, his voice fading away to leave her alone for the final notes, she knew she wouldn’t get out of Ohio intact.
That Ben Evans would break her heart.
And she’d let him.
* * *
Piper practically ran from the stage, winding around tables to get to the back of the pub where the door to the ladies’ room called to her with its safety, its peace, its promise of creating a barrier between her and the man she left behind.
A man who wasn’t hers.
She pushed through the swinging door to find a small sitting area with a blue velvet couch next to the baby changing station. Her steps echoed off the white tile floor as she rushed toward the sink, waving a hand in front of the sensor. Water poured from the faucet, and she cupped it, splashing it onto her face.
