A Love Song for Dreamers - Piper Lawson Page 0,34

neck. Soon Miranda will be, too.

So, this morning, I give myself this one thing.

I slide a hand down the front of my pajamas, where I’m already wet.

It’s a bad idea to fantasize about a man you can’t have.

I didn’t let myself do it when we were apart, save for a couple of times when I gave myself a pass on account of being too tipsy to regulate my fantasizing or having a really brutal day of rehearsing or, once, when he did a spread for this magazine where I swear he was looking right at me and seeing every dirty thought I’ve ever had about him—when we were together and since.

A few sweaty minutes in the studio—no matter how earth-shattering—doesn’t change anything.

What about you calling him before his show?

I did it to prove that all the months he was on the road, I hadn’t held him at a distance because I wanted him out of my life.

But it didn’t play out the way I expected.

It was better with you.

It sounded as if he didn’t only mean the show. I wanted him to mean that.

But I can’t fall for Tyler Adams again.

My heart wouldn’t survive it.

When he comes back later today, there’ll be no more longing looks, no more flirty winks, and definitely no more thinking about how the only thing terrible about having his tongue in me was that it wasn’t his cock.

As a consolation prize, I give myself the best solo orgasm I’ve had in years.

The release seems to shake loose a few ideas, and when I get out of the shower, I jot down half a page of notes in the notebook on my desk.

Then I dress and go downstairs to grab coffee with Haley, who’s sitting on a chair with her feet on another.

“You okay?” I ask.

“Fine. Your dad was hoping to talk to you. He’s staining the gazebo. I swear he went out and made millions of dollars so he could live like he had his own home reno show.”

“You love it.”

She grins. “Yeah, I do.”

I turn that over as I go to find him.

I weave through the manicured lawns on the other side of the house, around a grove of trees.

Sophie’s playing with her trucks in the grass a dozen feet away from the gazebo my dad built for Haley with his band’s help.

“Annie! Play trucks with me. This one’s Boom. And that’s Mice.”

“Mouse?” I ask.

“Mice.”

“She named it after Mace,” Dad weighs in from where he’s painting one of the beams, sweat dripping down his face.

“Annie, you’d be a red truck.”

“Perfect.” My gaze drifts back to my dad. “Haley could use some love.” My dad cocks a brow, and I shudder. “Not like that. Just… whatever, you do you.”

I take in the gazebo, its graceful beams and arches. “Didn’t you just build that five years ago?”

“People think building things takes effort. But maintaining them is harder.” He takes a seat on the top step, balancing the brush on the edge. “When something’s in my care, I keep it a certain way. Maybe it’s the right way, and maybe it’s not. But I can’t apologize for doing things the best I know how.”

“Can you apologize for hurting the people you love?”

He doesn’t answer, but I see the strain in the tight lines of his face.

“There’s something I need to say to you,” he goes on at last, and I hold my breath.

This is it. An apology.

“The scholarship you got at Vanier that covered the rest of your tuition and living expenses through graduation. That was me.”

I stiffen. “What are you talking about? I told you I didn’t need your help.”

“And I didn’t accept that.”

My mouth works. “All you had to do was say you were wrong. Instead you had to control the situation again and manipulate me into taking your money.”

He leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “That’s not what it was.”

“No?”

His groan has Sophie looking up over her trucks, her curious gaze cutting between us.

“I don’t want your money. I mean, it helped,” I concede, shoving a hand through my hair. “I can’t pretend it didn’t. But all I ever wanted was for you to respect me. To see me as an equal.”

“You’re not equal to anything. You’re my child. You will always mean more to me than anything in this world has a right to mean.”

My throat swells at the emotion in his words. “I just want you to know that I can handle myself. That you’d bet on me if I