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“I say on our next long tour break, we head to Vegas and live large for a couple days. Go to some clubs, hit some casinos. What do you think?” Hunter was ready for Sawyer to fall right back into his old patterns. They were young and wild and free. No strings, no fiancées (fake or otherwise), no wives.
That last one stung the most.
“I don’t know. I can’t think about vacation when I’m staring down a month of shows.” Truthfully, he couldn’t think about anything other than Piper and the baby.
“Well, you think about it. I will go wherever you want to go if it will help you get your mind off things.”
Things such as what in the world was wrong with him? He’d had the perfect girl and all he had to say was I love you and not be such an immature jerk. Sawyer still couldn’t wrap his head around his own idiocy. He had put Piper in the path of pain to fulfill his selfish need to get back at his mom. He was no better than Gretchen and had only himself to blame.
“I’m going to take a walk around the arena. I can’t sit here anymore,” Sawyer said, standing up and giving his legs a stretch.
“Want me to come with you?” Hunter asked. “If you need me, I’m there.”
“Thanks for the offer, man. But I think I need a little time by myself.”
“I’m just a text away,” Hunter reminded him.
Sawyer appreciated his friend’s concern, but he needed to be alone with his thoughts. He had no idea where Piper was. He couldn’t be accused of trying to engage with her if he happened to stumble upon her. He went inside the Allstate and decided to find his dressing room. There were three doors in a row. The right one had Piper’s name on the door and the left one had Sawyer’s. There was no one in the middle. He couldn’t help but wonder if Heath had asked them to do that. God forbid she and Sawyer share a wall.
The door to Piper’s dressing room opened, and Lana stepped out. She startled and held a hand against her chest. “Didn’t you get Heath’s text?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“No loitering outside her dressing room.”
Sawyer rolled his eyes. “I’m loitering outside my dressing room, not hers.” He pointed to the door with his name on it.
“She’s coming out soon to do sound check. Don’t be out here when she does. This is hard enough for her already, okay?”
He felt horrible for being the cause of her pain. He had promised Ruby to help reduce Piper’s stress, but all he had done was raise it to what were probably unhealthy levels.
He decided he’d go hide in the upper level and watch sound check. They couldn’t say he was trying to engage her in conversation from the nosebleed section.
The arena was so still when there was no one in it. Sawyer closed his eyes and took a second to enjoy the peace and quiet. His eyes opened the moment she stepped out onstage, his body had sensed her presence before his brain registered it.
He was up so high it was hard to see anything. She adjusted her earpiece and the background track began to play. Her voice came through loud and clear as she sang a couple bars of a song.
This was the feeling he had been avoiding since he had woken up that one morning in September with her lying next to him. There she was on the stage. So close yet so far. He could see her, but he couldn’t talk to her. He couldn’t hold her or kiss her. It was the worst kind of torture.
Still, he didn’t regret letting things go as far as they had. As much as this hurt, he couldn’t wait to meet that baby growing inside her.
It was painful, though, and suddenly he couldn’t sit there and watch her from afar a second longer. He headed back downstairs and backstage to his dressing room. When he opened his door, he noticed an envelope at his feet. He picked it up, figuring it was something from the arena staff until he saw the handwriting on the front.
It was from Piper.
He ripped it open. Inside were several sheets of notebook paper. The first one was a note, the rest song lyrics.
Sawyer,
I need your help with this. I want it to be good, and you’re the only one who can make it that way. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Piper
No Love, Piper or xoxo, Piper. Just plain ol’ Piper. He glanced over the song she had written. It took him a minute, but he realized it was the one he had seen her working on that day they’d fought about setting a wedding date. This was the song for their baby boy. A love song and a lullaby all in one.
