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Holy shit, is it hot in here, or is it just me?
“If I tell you the same thing, will you hold it over my head and never let me live it down?” I ask, raising of one eyebrow.
“Never. But I might make you call me Prince Hot Stuff once more before I kiss you again,” he smirks.
“That was a mistake. A heat-of-the-moment thing, and one that will never be repeated,” I mutter.
“Uuugh, fine. You’re such a buzz kill,” he says with a roll of his eyes, tightening his arms around me. “You get door number two then. No take backs.”
“What are you, twelve?” I laugh.
“I will put us both out of our misery with a kiss that will knock this hot-as-hell dress right off your sexy body, but you have to do something for me first.”
“If it involves naked wrestling, naked pillow fights, or anything naked involving Jell-O, I’ll pass.”
He shakes his head at me as he drops his arms from around my waist and moves them up to my shoulders, turning me around to face the stage. He presses himself against my back and dips his head down to my ear, the warmth of his breath making my whole body tingle, until he opens his mouth again.
“I’ll kiss you again as soon as you get up there and sing a song.”
Chapter 12: Fucking Perfect
“How do you even know I can sing? I could get up there and sound like a dying cat. Like Derrick Alfredo dying a slow, painful death. No one wants to hear that,” I protest, trying to dig my feet into the wooden bar floor as Eric pushes me towards the stage with his hands still on my shoulders.
“Our boats butt up against one another, and sound carries over the water when you have all the windows open,” he reminds me.
Which does nothing but freak me out all over again that he heard everything Belle and Cindy and I talked about during my drunken-confession night. I mean, he pretty much saw some of what my life was like with Sebastian on the dock the other day, but not the full, ugly truth. At least he isn’t sending me self-confidence articles like Cindy and Belle, so maybe he doesn’t know everything. And sure, he’s pretty quick with the compliments, but he’s not overdoing it or making me stand in front of a mirror and go down a list of things I like about myself, so there’s that.
“You’ve also spent the last few days loudly playing and singing along to angry, Alanis Morissette music. Try and pick something a little less rage-y tonight,” he chuckles as he gently pushes me away from him. I begrudgingly go up the steps on the side of the stage.
Fine, so I can sing. It’s not that big of a deal. I’ve just never done it in front of anyone before, aside from my dad and sisters when my dad got us a karaoke machine one year for Christmas. I like to keep my singing to the shower and the occasional screaming at the top of my lungs when I’m pissed off.
I could have easily said no to Eric’s request. Shown him I didn’t give a shit if he gave me another kiss or not—but damn it, I want another kiss. I want to see if it’s as amazing as the first one, or if I just imagined all the sparks and the heat between us. Plus, I’m not usually one to turn down a dare, and even though he didn’t come right out and say it, it seemed implied that he’s daring me to do this shit.
Pushing back my nerves, I watch Eric take a seat at a table right in front of the stage with Cindy, Belle, Vincent, and PJ, and I take a deep breath and walk over to the karaoke guy. He hands me the thick white binder filled with song titles, and I flip through the pages until I my eyes gravitate to a song in the middle of a page, and I run through the lyrics in my head.
Shit. This song might be a little too personal and deep.
“‘Better Man’ by Pearl Jam? Nice,” the guy manning the machine says, snatching the book back out of my hand and tossing it onto a table next to all of his equipment. He starts punching a few buttons on his laptop and glances over at me.
“You know how this works, right? The screen on the stool in front of the mic will show the words, and they’ll go from white to blue when you need to sing them,” he instructs.
Before I can tell him I’ve changed my mind and want to pick another song, something that doesn’t have words to it that feel like they’ve been etched onto my fucking heart with a rusty knife, the opening guitar riff starts playing through the bar’s sound system. I rush over to the microphone and wrap both my hands around it, closing my eyes and inhaling deeply through my nose, letting it back out slowly through my lips as the sound of the guitar changes and I know it’s time to start singing.
