A Love Song for Dreamers - Piper Lawson Page 0,33

your procedure, I expect you back in studio the next week or you’ll be paying for missed time out of your royalties,” Zeke tosses as he heads for the door.

“Always a pleasure.”

Zeke and I have always had a rocky relationship, but my relentless focus on being the best I can clashes with his “make money first” approach.”

He disappears down the hall and I go back to my phone, hitting Accept.

“Everything okay?” I answer, concerned.

“Yes. Fine,” Annie says, a little breathless. “I just called to say good luck tonight.”

I’m still on edge from Zeke’s threat, my hand tightening on the phone.

I haven’t spoken to her since yesterday in the studio, and the sound of her voice has every part of me tightening as I remember the way she fell apart under my hands and my mouth.

But despite my physical response to her now, I can’t help thinking of all the times she didn’t call to wish me good luck when I was on tour. The times I didn’t text her because I knew she was busy.

She’s calling now.

Which means nothing. Tell her goodnight. Get moving.

“How was your day?” I ask instead, shifting out of the chair and leaning over the bureau, pressing my bad hand on the surface. The fingers won’t straighten all the way.

“Less exciting than yours. Took Sophie to daycare. Met Pen for coffee before she headed back to New York. Worked on the musical. Went for a swim. With the bathing suit this time,” she adds lightly.

I turn over my hand and inspect the tangle of black vines and thorns and roses, the white lines beneath. Layers upon layers of ink and scars, like the layers of lies and feelings and decisions that litter our past.

I should be hanging up, both to get on with my prep and because talking to her like this feels too good, too much like something I could look forward to.

“I was listening to a demo Shay sent in the car today,” I hear myself say. “She’s good. I’d love to cut the punk loose and put Shay in the studio instead.”

“Then do it.”

Her direct reply takes me by surprise. “This isn’t my fight. It’s not my music.”

“Diving into someone else’s mess can be the best way to get out of your own. Maybe you need something bigger than yourself to believe in.”

My bassist sticks his head in the doorway, calling my name and jerking his head toward the stage.

I take a last look in the mirror at my stage getup, the makeup, the hair—all done by professionals to craft a man who looks like me but isn’t quite.

“Tell me yesterday wasn’t you trying to fuck your ex out of your head.”

My blunt words have her pausing. But there’s a cord of strength in her voice when she responds. “I think I needed to feel alive in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. I wanted to feel in control, which I know is a weird way to think of what happened, but it’s true.”

Maybe I haven’t been alive these past two years despite the crowds and the music and pressing past every challenge that’s been leveled at me.

Maybe I didn’t feel in control until I had her heated skin under my lips, her hot breath on my hand, her tight body squeezing me when she broke apart.

When I answered her call, I wanted to prove my heart doesn’t beat for her.

But now, it’s hammering harder than ever.

“You are the most alive person I’ve ever met,” I say. “I saw your show in New York four times. I couldn’t see opening night off-Broadway because we had a gig in Colorado. But the second night, I flew in. And your first night on Broadway. I even saw it once without you in it, because there was something I suspected but wanted to know for sure.”

I block out the noises from the backstage crew, the chatter and footsteps in the hall, until all I hear is her soft breathing. “What’s that?”

“It was better with you.”

Everything’s better with you.

11

This morning, there’s no alarm to wake me to start working.

There’s no screaming from downstairs, no sound of Sophie shrieking, no daycare.

But I’m awake and warm and itchy.

I’ve been at Dad and Haley’s for four days. The first couple of nights, I slept through without waking. Since Tyler left for LA, though, I’ve been restless and turned on.

I still haven’t found the breakthrough I need with my final song, and I know Ian’s breathing down my