He chuckles as his feet hurry to catch up with mine.
We walk along the boardwalk, laughter and the sound of silverware against ceramic flooding out of every open door and window. I breathe in deeply the unknown—the smell of salt water in the air mixed with smoked meats and strong perfume. Every place we pass looks exciting, but nothing tugs at my deepest desires until I see a chalkboard sign . . .
Karaoke.
I used to own a karaoke machine when I was a little girl. My sisters and I would choreograph dance routines and rotate who got to be the lead singer ofThe Summers Sisters. We laughed and dreamed about how we’d make it big one day, even though Emma had no rhythm and Sophie was always trying to be louder than all of us.
And then Barbies turned to boys, and the karaoke machine gathered dust in the back of my closet.
But I always wanted to be bold enough to sing karaoke outside the walls of my own room, and for years I’ve had a song picked out for just a moment like this.
“Here,” I say loudly, stopping at the sign in front of a bar where smoke curls out the windows and shouting can be heard over the music.
“Here?” Milo questions, his brows raised. “Are you sure?”
“Never been so sure in my life,” I say with a smile.
And when the guy with the clipboard taking names for karaoke writes mine down along with “Any Man of Mine” byShania Twain, my stomach flips so violently I’m not sure my knees or my throat will work when it’s my turn.
“You’ll be up next, after . . .” The guy tilts his head toward the stage, grinning.
I look up at the stage and there’s a woman, maybe in her fifties—hair done up like the ’80s with big bangs and wearing a neon-pink jumpsuit—belting out “Total Eclipse of the Heart” like she’s personally responsible for the sun not coming back.
She doesn’t miss a note.Not one. In fact, she adds notes. Notes I’m fairly certain don’t exist in the original recording.
The crowd eats it up—clapping, cheering, someone in the back howling like we’re at a full-blown concert instead of a bar that smells faintly like fried pickles, cigarette smoke, and regret.
The guy with the clipboard leans toward me. “Tough act to follow,” he mutters, not even trying to make it sound encouraging.
My stomach drops somewhere near my sandals.
“Great,” I whisper. “Love that for me.”
On stage, the woman hits the final note and holds it . . . holds it . . .holds it—until I’m completely convinced she might actually pass out.
The room erupts when she finishes.
The woman bows like she’s been waiting her whole life for this exact moment, and honestly . . . she might have been.
The clipboard guy claps twice, then looks at me. “You’re up, Sadie. Good luck.”
I freeze. My knees decide they no longer know how to bend.
Then I feel Milo’s hand on the small of my back before his lips graze my ear, a soft fluttering of butterflies replacing the somersaults, and in a teasing tone he says, “Sadie Summers, I bet you can’t get up on that stage.”
A small smile tugs at my lips. “What do I get if I win?”
“I’ll buy you ice cream. Lemon,” he says easily.
“And if I lose?” I let out a shaky breath, the nerves loosening in my chest.
His voice dips, just enough to warm my skin. “I’ll eat my mint chocolate chip in front of you while you regret everything.”
I turn slightly, catching the glint in his blue eyes. “You’re going to lose.”
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
I take one step at a time, my sandals feeling like stilts and my legs like sifting sand, but somehow, I make it to the microphone in the middle of the stage. There’s a small screen placed at the base of it, the words to the song I’ve known by heart since I was nine years old beginning to appear as the tune begins to blast through the speakers.
