A Love Song for Dreamers - Piper Lawson Page 0,63
smiles broader than I’ve seen her smile since I returned from Dallas.
Tyler nods to the pianist in the corner, who plays the arrangement. The song moves through me, the accompaniment to the song I spent this summer writing.
Tyler sings the first part of the duet, and I melt into the floor.
I can’t move.
Can’t think.
Can’t breathe.
Can’t live.
Except I am living, and his voice, his presence, is the only thing responsible for it.
Music is a language that makes sense when all the others don’t. And right now, there’s no greater expression of life’s promise than what’s happening around me, inside me.
Hearing Tyler as the dreamer makes my heart explode. I almost miss jumping in at the female lead’s part, but once I do, I focus on the song and match him tone for tone, measure for measure, phrase for phrase.
Every verse and chorus I’m vibrating, caught between the stage and the words and the man in front of me.
When we finish, the final notes of our voices and the piano fading, Jeffrey, Miranda and Elle are all standing silently.
They don’t need to say it was good.
Because it wasn’t good.
It was right.
It was everything.
Jeffrey’s the first to move, nodding. “Tyler. You understand we’re looking to do previews in three months, then move it to off-Broadway with an initial twelve-month run.”
“I have other commitments, but I can fit them around this.”
I’m still trying to catch up. “You’d have to move back to New York. You hate New York.”
“I can’t hate it. It has you.” My heart expands.
“Good. We have a show,” Jeffrey says.
“I have a condition,” Tyler interjects. “Annie has to do it with me.”
I can barely breathe through the tightness in my throat. “It’s our show. It always has been. But I’ve been trying to find the right people to play the leads so I didn’t have to be in it. So I could be in LA with you.”
His forehead presses to mine, and I reach up to tug on his hair, at a loss for words.
“If it’s our story, it seems fair we should do it. At least for the initial run.”
I shake my head. “But what about your record deal? The house in LA?”
“I withdrew the offer. And I’ve pulled some strings with the label to give me more flexibility.”
“You really want to do this,” I whisper.
“I really do. Just tell me one thing—why’d you give them this ending?”
“Because if I got to create my own world... we’d be together in it. Every single time.”
My gaze falls to his mouth, his full lips, and I need them on me.
Tyler kisses me, and it’s everything—we’re everything.
A throat clearing has me pulling back before I can do something about it—Miranda.
Elle’s devouring a sandwich, eyes glued to the stage, and even our funder looks entertained.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have some calls to make about marketing. This”—Jeffrey nods to us—“I can sell.”
My stomach flips as I take Tyler in again, the rest of the room falling away.
There’s a tic in his jaw, and he looks hesitant for the first time since he got here. “The ring I gave you—do you still have it?”
I reach into my neckline and pull out the chain, the ring I’ve been wearing since I returned to New York dangling on the end.
“That’s from our past. I have something to give you for our future. And I want a future with you. I even talked to your dad about it.”
So that’s why Dad was acting so weird on the phone. “I bet that was interesting.”
Tyler chuckles softly. “I told him I’m never letting you go again, and if he has a problem with it, he can go through me.”
He reaches into his pocket and produces a box.
My heart hammers against my back, and I’m feeling lightheaded.
Then he kneels.
I’ve always felt at my most powerful and powerless on a stage, but this moment with Tyler Adams on his knees for me puts every other moment to shame.
“Annie, you’ve always been the best part of my life. Even when I tried not to let you in, you were there. So bright, so damned fresh, and you believed in me when no one did. When I didn’t.”
His beautiful voice cracks, and I’m trembling from his words, from anticipation of what he’ll say next.
“I might have come from nothing, but I’ve been around the damned world. Which means I can say without a doubt that you are the best part of it, Six. I know we both have dreams, but mine aren’t worth living